In the Thick of It

Lately I've been writing a lot of notes to myself about painting. I'm at some indefinet place with the work that has me uneasy. I can't rest in the chaos and mystery that I lived in until now. I still feel these elements are necessary to present in order to counter balance what feels like an impending insanity to convince ourselves that 'everything is under controle' and the universe will be catergorized and explained soon enough. I can't explain it. But it's looking more necessary to study and grasp these inclinations of controle, linear processing and goal oriented function. It's always looked so futile to me, because if there is no static goal in living why would there be one in painting? I can only guess that it's a way of learning to live better within time. The whole human method of setting about on a path with the idea that you're going to get where you think you're going has seemed absurd to me. It now appears approachable. Is it even possible to anticipate where or what something is REALLY going to be? (How could we even develop expectations when we haven't experienced it yet?) In this consideration it seems outlandish that we do this, but I assume tomorrow that when I go to brush my teeth, when I turn the faucet that water will come out. I'm even assuming that I'll wake up in the morning. Life makes no false promise of assuring us anything. This general assurance that we concoct for ourselves is a necessary illusion. While I'm in this experimental floundering I'm going to attempt exploring this. A related conundrum I've been asking myself is- does a painting show itself more through the process or the final piece? (Say the subject is 'grief' does one paint an image of someone grieving, or do they paint a work that will invoke the experience of grief from the viewer?) (And how can anyone presume what will affect another person, a stranger for that matter?) Somehow I believe the ends and the means can be synthesized. Art, like science and philosophy, are not about accepting or condemning but extending the question. Rather than saying, "Ah, it is a necessary illusion, I'll just keep living on!" or "Ah! It is an illusion, it's false, let's do away with it!" I can study both what makes it necessary and it's illusory properties.