What if My Soul Was Still

What if My Soul Was Still

The Stacy painting and Garbo, Smoke and Deceit took a turn today. There is a whole new life to them.

I’ve taken a liking to scribbling lyrics right into the painting to add texture. I like to take the most meaningful words or lines — what feels like the most important, or most important to me. Out of context or whatever. It’s intuitive.
Songs in the breeze.
Ghost in your dreams.

I sang through Forget Me Not at the piano — that song has been literal medicine for me.
What if my soul was still trembling?

The painting started to get a bit of a glow from a burnt sienna glaze followed by a crimson one. The gold and the cerulean popped.

I grabbed the yellow paint pen that was sticking out of the Posca box and scribbled over the canvas where the giant charcoal forget-me-not lays under who knows how many layers of acrylic.

I wrote:
What if my soul was still

Then I flipped the canvas and scribbled:
If my soul was still

Then:
My soul was still.

I had some rectangles taped out to create patches where I would gesso and try and fix the heavy grooves and lines that made it look worn down.
I am so haggard these days — this painting has been through so much with me.

There was one little spot where a gold shimmer was peeking through, so I put a tiny square of tape over that piece to protect it for the next phase. The rectangle was painted in a midnight blue with coral and aqua underneath. I carved if my soul into the thick blue paint to reveal a hint of the under colors. When it dried, I picked away the little taped square — and there was a gold face staring back at me. Exactly the size of the square. I love getting startled by such things.

I was getting too attached to the giant mouth in the Garbo painting.
When turned sideways, the mouth looked like a vulva — and it felt like there were many stories inside.

Whenever it gets too precious, I have to let it go.

I did a cerulean glaze and it was dreamy.

I had mixed a coral shade for the under layers of the Stacy painting but there was too much. Rick Rubin says not to waste paint, so I don’t. I mix on parchment paper and often take the paper and smear leftover paint onto whatever canvas is calling for it.
I usually have 10 to 15 paintings on the go in the studio. Garbo was calling for this.

She had a fresh cerulean sky — but far too much of it.
I stamped and smeared the golden coral and it made the creamiest pink lipstick shade — the kind of color and texture that makes Sephora feel like a candy store.

It stood out like bubble gum on the blue.

As soon as I let go of the mouth and lips I’d been so precious about, I got the dreamiest ones I could have imagined — just not in the way I would have planned.

—

Working on the Stacy painting again tonight.

I’m emotional, and I became intensely present with the painting as a conscious practice to centre myself. “Doing the work.”

Sometimes I experience this level of presence with the dogs too — there are times when I’m so present it almost feels like I’m on mushrooms. I’ve been on walks with them where they’re sparkling, almost glowing in the depth of the moment.

I sat in the blue velvet rocking chair and stared at those three patchwork panels.
I wasn’t sure where they were taking me or what my next step with them would be. I know the answer is always there and I just have to be present and wait.

As I stared intensely, that mushroom-feeling kicked in — so many images started appearing in the panels.
There were people — dancers, nurses, diner patrons, waitresses, and saints.
In the scenes were diners and cities and churches and cabarets —
and the lady in the purple dress who could have raised the Titanic, from one of the first paintings I ever did when I was just learning. One of the first real illusions was with her.

There was so much to look at and they seemed to be moving… fluid.

Stacy, I’d like to take you to a movie

…rolled through my head, and it hit me: the three rectangular panels, which were only there to cover what I thought were the worst parts of this painting, were actually dense with gorgeous moving pictures and scenes.

Stacy wanted to take me to a movie.

I don’t know if anyone else will ever see what I saw, but I do know I’m not on mushrooms right now.