It Hurts to Bang Your Head Against a Wall

For 6 weeks now, Nicholas Wilton has been telling his CVP students that we need to start without intention and let the painting develop as it wants to. He and his team of coaches continually tell us 'trust the process' and 'don't fall in love with your painting too early' and 'good paintings can be made quickly sometimes, but great paintings take longer.' Nick also stresses over and over again that it's important to be able to paint over parts you love in order to develop an even stronger piece.And I got it all, I really thought I did. But this little voice was whispering in my ear 'but why would I want to get rid of a good bit? Surely I can keep that and still make a good painting?'This is something I often do. I hire experts and then I doubt what they say and think I know better.When I asked a friend to hang plywood panels on my studio walls with screws for me to hang my work in progress, he suggested a slightly different approach, but I wanted to stick with my plan. Then two days later, I realized he was right and asked him to come back. As he was implementing his solution (which was now more difficult to do) he said - only partly in jest - "the next time I suggest something, maybe you'll listen!"Good idea!Maybe I don't always have the answer. Maybe I don't always know how things should be. Maybe, by trying to impose my ideas, I miss other possibilities.This is definitely true in my life, but maybe it's also true in my work.A few weeks ago, during one of our course assignments - I created a painting that I love. I don't even care if anyone else likes it - I just love everything about it.So I decided to replicate it on a large scale. Which meant I was starting with intention, rather than play.Needless to say, it has been a struggle. It hasn't been fun and I haven't made little discoveries along the way. Yes, I am applying all the Art2Life principles, checking my values and design and making sure the colours work well together, but the painting has no soul.Or at least it had no soul until I went in and decided to make some out-of-control moves. Now it is a mess, but it is a mess with potential - and I'm having more fun with it.Duly chastised, I went back into the red paintings I'm working on as part of my CVP series and just began to play, without getting precious about anything. I even painted over two boards almost entirely in blue. It felt SO MUCH better than the laboured work I had been doing on the 'intentional painting.' I had fun laying on thick paint, I discovered that turquoise mixed with a little black, a little dark red and lot of white makes a lovely duck egg blue, and I was left with boards that are much more interesting and will give me a good place to start with my next layer.This is exactly like life, isn't it? If you try to impose your will, it's a constant struggle. Things never go exactly as you would like and so you feel yourself in constant opposition. Opposition to things that can't be anything other than what they are. Your husband can't remember your anniversary if he's rubbish at dates. Your boss can't be more organized if she's not. Your kid can't remember to keep her bedroom tidy - it's just not in her nature! But you think things should be different, so you just keep banging your head against that wall and wondering why it hurts so much.Letting go of expectations is so much easier. Easier for you and easier for the wall (a.k.a. husband, boss, kid!)