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 Unexpected joy sometimes happens when you try something you did not plan on doing. When I am just not feeling like getting gear together to paint out and I ignore myself and just go out there… sometimes those are the best days. Maybe because it reminds me of roller skating.
Roller Skating was what my gang in the old neighborhood, growing up on the East Side of Buffalo NY did through months of the summer. As children, we could hardly eat the bowl of cereal our mothers put in front of us, brush our teeth or even get out of pajamas before we hit the sidewalks. Our skates were rusty old things passed down from older siblings, cousins and neighbors with cranks and pinching metal frames that were mildly adjustable with a wrench. We ratcheted them to our sneakers until they stuck. We had skate keys which we hung around our necks on shoelaces. These performed the task of tightening our skates. We did this often because the sidewalks were rough, broken and choppy and this loosened the heavy metal skates. The metal skates wouldn’t get past a modern mother or child but we were powerful, free and most special when we wore them. Nothing could stop us .Not even the gear itself! When I remember those days, getting out there early in the morning on skates and not reporting in till the streetlamps came on, I remember less about the gear and more about that bliss. The gear itself sometimes stops artists. We have to get past the carrying, set up and get more familiar with how paints, mediums and accessories work in order to get to the good stuff of creating. How do we get there? Do it over and over again, refine your carry list, learn what you can’t live without and what you can let go. And…get a jump start by keeping some things in your vehicle at all times….paper towels, water, bungee cords, and umbrella, chair, easel, extra canvas and sketchbook. Oh and don’t forget a hat, sunglasses, sunblock and bug spray. Put them in the car in early spring so part of the job is taken care of. By the way…I have to keep telling myself all of this because after years going out to paint, gear issues still get in the way.
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