By Jennifer Carrasco

Transcendence. An ache for a personal authentic beauty and order. When it's good, you feel like you are channeling something electric and flowing. Exultation.

Patrick Robinson asked me how I was able give my all to my painting and poetry. How to stop a self inflicted early edit from killing my beginnings.

When I was able to paint well (I can't anymore because of an advancing tremor), I would get my materials in order–paint brushes, paint, canvas and paper, and maybe pencil some thumbnail sketches. A painter's version of  a chef's mise en place. 

 Sometimes it was obvious there was only one direction. However, with a large mural commission, 20+ thumbnail ideas might bring together a good combination. An equivalent of this with poetry or prose, would be writing a stream of consciousness, then looking the pages over, getting rid of the dreck, and then developing the good stuff. Keeping in mind the sensory input; look, feel, smell, taste, temperature, and spacial qualities. 

With painting, I would do small color studies to establish my palette. Because I worked so large with murals, this approach kept me from making Big Problems later on. Also, because my murals were for a client, I needed to establish specifications and get approval before I started on their large project.  

My personal paintings were more fluid. I had an idea, would do a few sketches, decide on my color palette and images and then again get my materials organized, then for it, often discovering a new and better direction in the process. Staying open.

Once preliminary preparations were accomplished, then the pleasure and anticipation began. With painting, it's closer to singing but with color. All that luscious laying on and lifting of paint. And especially with mural projects, it was very physical, because I was working on such a large scale. I moved back and forth, across and up on at least a 12'x8' canvas; balancing shape, color, texture and line. An orange blending into a red in the left hand side needed a spot or two of that color on the other side, or toward the middle. Such urgency, such total engagement. But not always successful. The arts enchant and tantalize.

So much of genuine original work comes out of the body. How the body is "talking" that day through your brush or your consciousness, the use of color, feeling and shape–how intense all those factors were at the time you were painting/writing about the image or event.

Poetry or prose takes more out of me. I could go all night when I'm on track with a painting; with writing I writhe in my seat, scratch my head, yawn and twitch. I have to let an unchecked cascade of thoughts and visions tumble down onto
my page and fill it with a pool of words and images..Only then does the editing start, chopping out my digressions and the useless adverbs.

 
Then I might decide to briefly archive the writing or turn a painting to the wall for a while. Or abandon either as a bad idea forever.