Process Essay
Sometimes humans are defined as tool-using animals. Tools can say a lot…I lift my brush and smear its strings across a blank canvas and feel a rush of emotion escape me. I look at bold magenta line, shining and wet, glittering across the white surface and see… anger.
Another brush is lifted and I dip it into blue acrylics, and slash a bold line of cornflower blue under the previous angry line, and this is thinner, more delicate. I look at its wet, glittering presence and see… sorrow.
I lift a palette knife and dip it into a bright, sunshine yellow, and strike points and shards of glass onto the canvas. Bright rays of a mustard sun overlap and blend into the lines and I see… hope.
I find a sponge, just an ordinary kitchen sponge, and cut it to pieces, jagged and raw with no defined shape, and I dip them into red, orange, and green. One by one I blot them in crazed clouds and blotches, all layered atop one another intermixed and dark, and I see… confusion.
Now there’s another brush, but it’s large, and almost overwhelming, and dripping with a dark, menacing green, like a treacherous forest. I do not touch the canvas with this one, but I make motions to slash the canvas to pieces with the brush, and on the canvas the dark paint splatters, across all of the colours I’ve placed so carefully before. Over the canvas are pools and spikes of something, and I see… hate.
Something small is between my fingers, a finer brush, dipped in black. In cursive I scrawl “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over, across everything, across it all. The words blend in, they are barely visible, but still, I see… regret.
Now one final brush, but it’s not a brush, it’s my hand. Each finger is dipped in every colour, and ready to spread a spectrum across my heart. Gently I trace my fingertips on all the remaining space, all the places that were never filled, and color brightens up all that lonely white, and I see… love.
One final tool, and it’s vital, and simple. A water bottle, tainted with turpentine. I twist the nozzle to “ON”, and spray, starting at the top. The chemicals drip down, and the droplets carry the paint to the floor, all the colours taken down and blended into one. One puddle, one problem, one ending, in a bucket, mopped up and dirty. I look up at the grey, tinted canvas and I see… A Clean Slate.
All of these tools are in my own space, the brushes, the canvas, and even the turpentine. I have all of these art supplies in a very large box, which takes up half my closet space. All of these tools were used, all these colours, and all of these emotions. But there comes a time when I need to put that box away, and use the few tools that can never be locked up, and those are… my fear, my judgment, my mind, and my heart.
posted by Kasey @ 11/21/2005 10:54:00 AM
1 Comments:
absolutely beautiful.
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