Last Friday, the weather warmer than we deserve, I jumped on my bike and rode down to the lakeshore.
A November bike ride is rare.
It felt more like September, or August. I took my paint box with me.
During August I’d been making this same trip weekly.
I’d ride down to the lakeshore to paint. It was part of my August Art Immersion, and my ‘non-judgmental paint sessions’ were part of simply returning, or respecting (or rediscovering) creativity.
In August, this pandemic was weighing heavily (as it is now) and I needed to do something to break or disrupt the dysthymia I’d been feeling. Each day in August I immersed myself in something artistic.
Last Friday, it felt good to go back to the lakeshore, and to painting.
It doesn’t matter what I paint — even though the tree directly ahead of me was the same tree I visited in August — it matters only that I paint.
I can’t be critical of what appears on the page because that defies the object of the process, or the object of painting… or of art
It must just be there.
Yes, I always seek to improve, but on ‘non-judgmental’ painting days I am looking only to improve my mood.
It is what it is.
I am what I am.
Art reminds me.

11/09/2020                                        j.g.l.