"Stop reflecting and move."

I couldn't get the shape right on the fucking squirrel's head.

I have a painting I have been working on for about 4 years. It was originally a framed print of the four horsemen of the apocalypse - which I purchased for 3 dollars outside a thrift store - mainly for the wooden frame. I figured I could remove the print, and use the frame for something else; but as it turned out, the print was glued to the backing. I decided "fuck it" and put a few coats of primer over it. It was part laziness, unwillingness to make too much of a fuss over a $3 investment, and part just liking the idea of painting over the apocalypse.

The painting has been through several stages over the years. I have changed my mind repeatedly over what it is to become; and in the process I have painted on and over so many coats that the paper underneath - which has been slowly soaking up the paint in stages - is starting to bubble up and form ridges. Lots of time has passed in between each stage with the idea that if I got away from it and thought about it for awhile, the great idea about how to fix it/finish it would come to me.

First it was a lady smoking...on the far left side of the board - leaving too much space on the right and no real idea what to put there. I tried to cut into the space by enlarging her outline - made her features extra large and cartoony, but it didn't take out enough space. So I tipped it on it's side. Now she was lying down and smoking. So I painted a pillow underneath her. Now all the extra space was above her. I decided to place her in a flowerbed. Filled all the extra space with flowers. Too many flowers have the same effect as too much space. So a Volcano spewing flowers seemed the way to solve it. As I started outlining the Volcano, it reminded me more of an ocean wave. So, ok, ocean wave scooping up and pouring down flowers - that works too; but I had to paint the wave OVER the flowers, and was so sick of them by then that I didn't want to paint more into the wave. Not to mention that the wave solved the extra space in the upper left hand corner...but the upper right was still just a block of flowers.

That's where the painting stood when I looked at it again last Thursday.

It made no sense.What's missing? Why, a squirrel of course.

There is a great painting by George Caleb Bingham called "Fur Traders Descending the Missouri". I first saw it in an art history class. It is a naturalistic landscape painting of two men in a boat on the Missouri river...and with them in the boat, is a cat. It's not something you would notice or fix on right away...unless you had an inquisitive art history teacher who specifically pointed out the cat in the boat. Why? That's the beauty of it. Why the hell is there a cat in the boat. It's what sets it apart from the usual, apt, realistic landscape painting.

So I started painting a squirrel on her arm. And I couldn't...get...the fucking shape of the head right. So I started mixing the paint to go over it altogether - feeling stressed about the time I wasted to end up where I started from.

I had DVD episodes of Dexter running in the background while I was working on this. As I stood there - stuck - looking at the painting and scratching my head - thinking about where it had come from and assesing what probably should have been done to it instead (life metaphor) -  the dialogue on screen caught my interest and pulled me away from the painting for a moment. It was a dream sequence where Dexter and Deb are getting off an elevator...Dexter is dragging something heavy but you can't see what it is. They are talking about Dexter's break up with Lila (obnoxious scheming slut). Dexter says, "She had me fighting with myself all the time. All that self-reflection is unhealthy." Deb replies, "Stop reflecting and MOVE."

Now, she was probably telling him to move out of her way - as he was dragging the dead body of the man who murdered his mother; and then the camera cut to to Batista, holding up a severed foot, and saying "You can't leave this shit lying around, bro."

NICE.

Every once in a while, you hear exactly what you need to - exactly when you need to.So I finished the fucking squirrel. I don't know or care if it makes any sense. Going forward with it, I am merely concerned with the fact that the squirrel and wave are painted more naturalistic while the lady and the flowers are painted more cartoony. I'll make peace with that next.

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 I think what's going to happen is that the wave is going to carry acorns; and the title will be "The storm brought out all the nuts but the squirrel sure was happy." Dunno. We'll see where it goes as it moves.