Ruining

A thought I haven't flushed out into a full post yet  . . . ..

So I have taken gone back to painting again recently and what I realized I like so much about my creative process with painting is that there is this arc of development of the painting itself, and at least with me, I feel like I have to "ruin" it in order to make it good.  I start out with an idea or a feeling of what I want the painting to convey, but inevitably in my efforts to achieve the intended result, something goes awry that just downright looks horrible.  I'm not being harsh, or negatively judging myself, but something always goes to the ugly by accident.  Then again, there is something about the process of things going bad, that actually make things beautiful.  I like that message in life -- that if you haven't had to pull yourself back from the ugly, you can't shine.  I think there is something magical about being able to teeter with the edge of ugly, broken, wrong, disastrous and then coming through to the other side.  It makes the result at the end so much more profound; so much richer.  Plus, I like the secret of knowing that history of the thing; the private awareness that it was ruined and almost was abandoned completely.  It's empowering to know you can revive something, but also in knowing that you have made meaningless the idea of ugly.  That you have taken away any power from your perceived failures, as you know in your heart, they are just a step to the beautiful end.

Anyway - that's just what I have been thinking about  . . .

Namaste,
~Clare