Is your imagination running wild?

"Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye."

~ Dorothy Parker

I have waited years to revisit the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I left the city in 2012, and haven't been back since. Now, it's just after Christmas and here I am, wandering the vast galleries waiting to be inspired.

I've taken this trip back with my closest friend, and he has come with me, gamely stopping to look at things even though his heart isn't in it. And I'm surprised to find that mine isn't either. First we head to the contemporary galleries, where the exhibition seems to be about race or about alienation, or maybe about both. I'm not sure... there's no room for me to think because the art is shouting at me. It's more political polemic than art and I feel assaulted by other peoples' certainties. 

We see a sign for another show, this time focused on ecology and I realise I can't face it. If this is what contemporary art has become, I want no part of it. For me, art is about feelings, emotions, sensations. It's about visiting other peoples' insides, so I can make more sense of my own. I don't want lectures - I want art that leaves space for me. 

Upstairs, I found some relief on the 4th floor, where the abstract expressionists are shown together - Mitchell, Pollock, Twombley, Rauschenberg, and Rothko, among others. Once again, I learn that Pollock amazes me and that Rothko leaves me cold. Once more I am fascinated by Twombley's scribbles, and mesmerised by Rauschenberg's boisterous creativity. 

This sketchbook spread is everything I would normally avoid in my work. It's messy and unresolved. It's mainly in black and white when I prefer colour. And nothing has been thought through.

It's ugly and yet I love it. I really like the clash of the old formal photograph with the blotch of paint. I like that untidy black mark down the right hand side of one page and I'm proud of myself for leaving that ugly pencil scribble on the left.

I am not making these sketchbook pages because I want to turn them into paintings. I'm making them to explore something new. I'm making them to allow my imagination to run wild. 

I might also allow myself to practice drawing in this book, or I might test out a new technique or try mixing some unusual colours.

But because I know it's my ugly book, I don't have to worry about making it look good ...and by extension, I don't have to worry about being good. And let's face it, the worry about whether we are "good" or not, consumes a lot of brain space.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a place where none of that matters?