By Chance and Necessity

By Chance and Necessity, 48 x 72 inches, acrylic on panel. ©Deidre Adams

As I’m sure anyone who’s been at this artist thing for awhile has discovered, the single most important thing you can do is make sure you are practicing your artwork in some fashion on a reliable and regular basis. If you let any amount of time go by without working, it becomes easier to give in to the slightest excuse not to do it.

I’m committed to spending some amount of time every day working on my art, no matter what else is going on in life, and I’ve come up with some strategies that help me fulfill my intent. Putting actual brush to canvas or stitch to cloth may be the most obvious and immediately satisfying ways of working, but I believe it’s just as valid to spend time thinking about, writing about, or photographing your work. Keeping a sketchbook or journal are other ways. Teaching, spending time looking at things that inspire you, or getting out of your daily routine by traveling are also valid. Even something as seemingly unrelated as keeping your resume and other records up to date counts, as far as I’m concerned. If other pressing commitments or emergencies prohibit any of these activities, just closing your eyes and meditating for 10 minutes can be a way of focusing on your artwork.

I now have a studio that’s about 25 minutes away from my house when there’s no traffic. Being able to spend entire days there is a gift of no small measure. But some days I’m just too busy with other things to find time to make the drive there. So I maintain a good supply of paints and other supplies in my house, and on those busy days I can go into my home studio for an hour or two, or even as little as 10 minutes, and I feel completely refreshed and restored by maintaining this connection to my work.

I’ve been working away on lots of new paintings. I like the in-between stages where I can be utterly lost in the process and I don’t really have to commit. As long as I avoid saying I’m finished, the happy fun time can continue. Finishing is scary.

So I’m happy/not happy to announce finally that a new painting is done – for the fourth time! If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you’ll see this is a recurring theme. I thought it was done, lived with it for awhile, and realized that I just didn’t love it. As long as I don’t commit by publishing photos and saying “done” – and sometimes even then – I can still keep thinking about it and working on it if I choose.

Here are the three previous stages of “done” that By Chance and Necessity went through before I was totally happy with it:

Stage 1 – December, 2015

Stage 2 – February, 2016

Stage 3 – March 2016

I pondered on this for a long time and just could not figure out why I wasn’t fully committed to it. Finally, the idea occurred to me to use something I’d done in a previous work, and I went back to Pseudocode for the inspiration. That’s how I got the idea to add the very strong area of contrast at the bottom of this painting, which you see in the final result at the top of the this post. Now, I DO really love it!

Here are some detail images of the final: