Creativity is fluid

September is here and the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec said: "Fall is winter's spring."
New things are born in spring, to be harvested in the fall.

Well, I meant to do plenty of painting-harvesting and show you my new series In The Desert today, but because of stormy seeding the harvest is delayed.

New artwork has started to sprout but needs a little longer until it has reached full ripeness. In the past, paintings that I picked to early ended up being painted over again due to their lack of maturity.

A new piece is never started with a result in mind. The process of becoming, playing in the stream, the creation is the finding of each and every painting.

The challenge that lies in every new work is the endeavour to manage to create a unity on the canvas.
The continuing task is to compose until completion, until it works and stands. The results might make their way into your home or hang in exhibtions inspiring the observer but for me as the artist the finished painting is of less importance.

My floodgates to creativity are always open. I love color, I love the texture of the ink in connection with the water, and ideas come easily.
I always work on several pieces at the same time, because so much is unleashed that I need to spread it.

During all of this euphoria I have to stay centered, steering creativity perstistently onto the track. The longer I procrastinate, or the more often I change course, the longer I need to finish a painting. Of course, it's great fun to experiment, but real satisfaction only comes with added structure.

Balance between open playfulness and staying true to the course is key and is what makes a painting grow up.

Creativity is fluid. It is constantly flowing. It is always there and waiting for us to connect with it, to explore, and to originate something. Everybody accesses creativity in their own individual way.

At first, there is playing (there is nothing as forgiving as a white canvas) and then one gets to work, reviews, starts to channel and to lead. That part is hard work and demands one's total focus and energy because there is a constant back and forth switching between the left and the right side of the brain. Only acting in unison of left and right brings about the desired outcome.

Steered creativity is the finished painting, the fall, the harvest in the art.

"Great things are not done by impulse but by a series of small things brought together." - Vincent van Gogh