I feel like a poet after I paint. Communicating in shape and color change how you think about your emotions. I don’t need words to collect the feeling of holding in tears the moment before the first one breaks. I don’t need to describe the explosion of purples into reds then blues, ending in the deep blacks that mimic the emptiness of emotion drained. There’s only so much words can convey. The perfect collection would be words and colors together. But telling a story in words makes things more concrete than the amorphic pull of emotions up and down, left and right. Writing and painting work together and in opposition, for there is always something counterposing in verbally describing the emotion of form and color. Every sense is a color at it’s core, and can be explained as such. There’s no need for words alone, for they are concurrently too specific and imprecise. There’s beauty in existing in the space where words are gone and color reigns. That is the space for painting.
I don’t like coming out of that space. The space where painting is allowed to be magic. That space allows my soul to settle. Words rile it up. There is a place for both, but the first feels a lot better than the second. I want everyone to see what I see, feel how I feel when the paint hits the canvas. Unfortunately, I’m not a good enough painter yet. I need to keep practicing. I need to understand why the magic dies in my hands on transfer. I can’t fix what I don’t understand.
Teachers say I don’t use words correctly. That’s why they’re wrong. Limited. But the words aren’t wrong, they’re weak. The right composition says all those things the words do and what they can’t. That’s why the value of art is subjective. How much would you pay for a visual power of the uniqueness of your soul’s sound? That is the price of the perfect piece.
I hope you can understand this, reader. For to be a writer and an artist is to have two wolves battle over the right to your expression. You need both. Because some people can’t read paintings. Poor souls can’t see their mirror laid out before them. They only understand what you tell them, not what you show them. I have a favorite wolf, it’s the one I feed the most. Feed it too much and you lose the other. How will you work in the world if you lose the other? How can you invite people into your world if you lose the other? Which is your favorite, reader? Can your soul see it’s mirror in color and shape? I’ll teach you, reader. You can visit my world until you find your own.