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We paint…therefore we’re free. : On Painting, from Death Row
*Steven Nelson is a prisoner on death row in Texas. The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood serves as his spiritual advisor. This piece flows out of a conversation that Dr. Hood had with Nelson on meditation
Painting is both a medium and a gateway. Energy flows through the brush onto the canvas. Emotions pour out to make the shapes of our lives. No matter what we produce looks like, it is a part of us. We are creating a glimpse of something that cannot be constructed in the exact same way ever again. The brush becomes akin to the very breathe of the creator, the catalyst for creation. The destination always changes and morphs with everyone who dares to engage that which is created. We too are always changed by how we create. Symbiotic growth is happening constantly, amorphously and passionately right before us, in us and beyond us. We are the ebbs and flows of the strokes and colors. We are both the creation and the creator. We are the movement of time and space.
Paint is a vehicle of course. We are the driver. The painter is required to think and do. Though their movements don’t have to be slow or even methodical, they do have to be intentional. No matter how the paint gets to the canvas, your mind must construct the movement that gets it there. Each application is important. Each color matters. There is language in the outcome of such choices. Both precision and fluidity create a symphony of creativity. We are transported to somewhere else because we have dared to create something else. Both the destination of the work itself and the future of the interpretation are influenced and launched by what we do.
Where are we going? When you first start to create, you have no idea. Our most carefully laid out plans can never predict everything that will appear. Lines are not exact. Colors are not clear. Images look different than we anticipated. There are all sorts of places of unpredictability that we might arrive at. Painting emulates life in this way. When we dare to create or live our lives, we can never fully anticipate what we will find. However, we learn to appreciate the creation because we are the creator and the creation is growing in and through us. There is no possible way to separate the painter from the painting.
Inspiration is usually assumed to come from somewhere else. The painter however knows different. Painting is a means of revelation. Primarily, the revelation of the self. Even if one encounters something inspiring, it still must fester within the painter before it can be utilized to create. Ultimately, we are always the source of our art, the revelation of our being.
Intimacy is transformative. We recognize that we are one with the other. The painter connects with the viewer of the painting. Sometimes the result is one of awe. Sometimes the work is one of disdain. No matter what the reaction, there is always some level of intimacy in the created reaction. The work of the painter consistently breaks down walls or gets in our heads. Once the painting is seen, there is no possible way to unsee it or stop it.
Paint is a means of fluid escape. Prison bars cannot hold the creation in. We paint…therefore we’re free.
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