1000 Petals

In March 2024 I arrived in Israel for what I intended to be a longer visit. The visit demanded commitment and became a return. I came with a carry-on and one large checked in piece of luggage. The two most valuable objects in the checked luggage were a Shakuhachi flute and painting accessories (gouache paints and brushes).

It was a demanding transition and the conditions (external and internal) did not leave room for painting. In April we moved to a larger apartment which provided a practice space and an office room with a desk.

I started slowly drafting, then drawing, and found myself immersed in the 1000-petal lotus. I arrived at a specific drawing and a color study. I gathered the courage to purchase three large quality sheets of water color paper (I’d never painted anything larger than A3) and found the courage to actually draw on one of them.

In June I first put color to paper, my first attempt at such large washes.

Then the magnifying light came out and I started building up layers, within each layer slowly making my way from the inside out bringing to life the drawing:

By mid August I was looking at this, the shape was there, but it felt … blunt … and dull … lacking lightness & vibrancy … I was a bit concerned but also trusting that the next transformations would bring out what was lacking:

The next wave of transformations demonstrated, numerous times, how small changes can affect the overall light of the painting. I don’t feel confident working with colors (I don’t have a visual image I am working towards, only a feeling I am trying to tease out). I was amazed to witness some of the changes that unfolded before my eyes. The addition of new subtle elements and subtle colors sometimes transformed the entire painting in unbelievable ways (as if the entire painting had been modified).

In September I was looking at this:

Then came long meditative sessions (mostly on weekends) of further iterations each introducing detailed refinements. Sometimes (often) tense opening moves knowing that making one change to one petal was irreversible and would have to be repeated hundreds of times. All while working through the magnifying light with tiny brushes … constantly seeking to tease out more and more light:

It felt like an endless process and though I saw it coming to a conclusion (I could feel a convergence) I surrendered to whatever it called for (and coincidentally stopped taking pictures). A couple of weeks ago, I reached an ending. I knew I could continue further. I also new it was time to move on, and so this is where the painting ended up (kind of, I no longer have a scanner and it is way too big for a home scanner, so all I have is a slightly processed picture from the phone … it is physically more vivid … the blues are more saturated):

A few things I learned along the way:

1. Watercolors – I am most familiar and comfortable with gouache paint however it is time to explore watercolors. With gouache, I arrive early at excessive saturation and then have to gradually and subtly subdue it and tone it down with subsequent layers (using a lot of lightly toned white paint). This feels to me like a struggle. Instead, I wanted to gradually increase saturation by slowly building up contrast and saturation. I have already experimented with watercolors. I have experienced how (amazingly) minute amounts of color (it requires discipline to use so little) are required to build up vibrance. I look forward to continuing this exploration. I have wondered how it would feel to recreate this painting with watercolors and what outcome it would lead to. I want and am ready to delve deeper into watercolors.
2. Intimacy – Spending so much time under the magnifying glass led to what felt like a fractal relationship with the geometry of the petals. I have come to appreciate so many subtle centers, proportions, relationships between the centers of each petal and between the petals. I feel I have an intimate knowledge of petals. I kept wanting to zoom in more and tend to more and more details. There was a physical limit beyond which I could not go. I have had a wish to do this again four times larger (the painting is approximately 60 x 80 cm) to give each petal more space.
3. Paint Texture – I became very sensitive to the texture (thickness) of the paint I was working with. Since I was sometimes painting for hours I could feel how the texture was changing (the paint was drying) and behaving differently as time passed. Sometimes I felt that it started too thin, after a while reached a sweet spot and then became too difficult to work with.
4. Perspective – Spending so much time under the magnifying glass also led to a kind of perception bias. For so long I had looked at this painting through a magnifying that I lost touch (a bit) of the way most people (including me from now on) will see it. There were transformations I made that felt impactful to me as I was making them (looking through the magnifying glass) but had much less effect when looking at the painting as a whole from a normal viewing distance. Some of the accumulated transformations feel like they had a negative – a kind of agitation – a business that undermines the overall peace of the painting.
5. Perfection – Working up close teased out a tendency to seek perfection. However, that led to tension which required resolution (or I would have stopped painting). The resolution was to let go, and allow the same painting gestures and intent to repeat while accepting that the outcome would be unique every time, as it is in nature. Also, painting is better on the exhale.
6. Correct Effort – there were many junctions where I felt stuck or apprehensive about moving forward. There were also many hours, when the next transformation was clear to me and I simply had to perform it, of sweet meditative immersion. The apprehensive junctions became opportunities to practice correct effort (inspired by the flow states): pause, step back, just stare at the painting for a while (a few minutes, a day, a couple of weeks), embrace the stuckness as insight and allow it to resolve itself.
7. Geometry & Color – after completing the painting I found myself looking at other paintings (mine and others that inspire me) and I have recognized things that work well and things that work less well. It is a less direct and conscious learning. But I feel a subtle learning is taking place (that I cannot put into words) and that I am improving (I have mixed feelings about the resulting painting).

A few months ago I started to feel the Samkhya project calling me back to it. That was part of the motivation to bring this painting to an ending. I have, over the last two weeks, been reconnecting with the Samkhya text and project and I am looking forward to resuming that painting process and seeing it through to completion.