“Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future…I want to fly like an eagle.” – Steve Miller

Resuming practice of orchid leaves last week, I found myself frustrated with my lack of progress and perhaps backsliding, and I decided to add a bit of landscape in the background, going totally off of only work I’ve seen, without instruction. Somehow not entirely outside the box, as in this case I sought to imitate landscape paintings I’d seen, but not really “knowing what I’m doing.” I don’t mind the result at all. But what has happened to that swirling vortex of Pollock/De Kooning/Motherwell that’s brewing inside me? I’ll revisit shortly. How can I incorporate or integrate a Taoist sensibility and traditional Chinese technique and aesthetic with the studied rebellious abandon of the New York School. Why am I even doing this? Am I barking up the wrong tree? I can only keep moving forward (it beats standing still, which I’m too good at.) You wouldn’t drive a car on the highway after one lesson in the parking lot. But then, here, in this scenario, who gets hurt if I “crash”? Isn’t creating a sufficient sense of safety to be willing to “crash and burn” exactly what I’m trying to do here? And who knows what will rise from the ashes?