Lynn Connell

Apr 1, 2005 - Apr 20, 2005

Loveworks

Someone once told me that it takes a good 10 years of painting a lot to begin to find your own voice. 9 years later, I must say I totally agree. At the beginning, I did bright colourful watercolours and acrylic on paper – joyful, happy, exhuberant! Then came a period of intense drawing, mark making on paper, experimenting with the model, with charcoal, conté, pencil… I loved what was happening, with the drawings, but I couldn't transfer it to paint. My teacher, Peter Kolisnyk kept saying "keep going…don't worry about it" and for a whole year I kept trying and trying, but it just didn't work. Then finally at a workshop at the Creativity Art Retreat, something happened…they began to take shape! Acrylic on canvas, latex, charcoal, ink, spread, thrown, splattered, scraped, and then, with a credit card…the figures taking form. That was the beginning.

Here I am 2 years later watching them change, again and again. It is a wild journey, this making of art! I have no idea where I am going or what the outcome will be. It is often exhilarating, sometimes horrifying. I love them. I hate them. And yet, a few hours later, looking at them out of the corner of my eye, they start to tell me where to go. I am learning to listen to them, to trust the process, to take the risk, remembering that, as Douglas Walton says "wrong is right", you have what you need. Oh it is scary all right. But finally I understand that this business of painting is all about the adventure of doing it…nothing about the end product. That will take care of itself.

So here's to the journey! Enjoy!