On Not Being Able to Paint
A fascinating book which at times gets far too bogged down in the author’s own self-analysis, On Not Being Able to Paint nevertheless comes to some amazing conclusions about what can stop creativity. She talks about the fear to create a piece of artwork and how it often seems like a life-and-death situation, when really, it isn’t at all. After all you can just tear up what you made if you don’t like it. And how it’s really difficult to teach someone how to paint with rhythm and real feeling in a painting. Because that comes from within, from a deeper place, and can’t be taught.
The significance of an art school for an artist, she feels, is not in teaching certain painting techniques but in offering a safe framework and space in which the artist can work. That really resonates with me because going to my art classes once a week really helped me stay creative and keep putting something down on canvas. Whether it was crap or not, which sometimes it could be.
