Janice Mason Steeves

Last week I gave a cold wax and oil workshop in Winnipeg to these artists.  All of them have been painting in acrylic for many years, so cold wax and oil was a big departure for them. And even though I suggested that they make 'bad art' in one exercise during this class, there were some really exciting paintings that came out of the workshop. I've probably written about making 'bad art' before.  The idea was mentioned in the book, the Tao of Photography , as well as  in Eric Maisel's book, "Coaching the Artist Within ": "To create we have to take the bad with the good.  We're bound to write bad paragraphs along with good ones.  That's the eternal law.  We can get rid of those bad paragraphs later on, but first we must write them.  Otherwise we won't write anything at all.  If we try to write only the good paragraphs, we are three-quarters of the way toward paralysis.  The name that we've coined for this problem is 'perfect...

This past weekend my studio was filled with nine enthusiastic and industrious artists learning about the cold wax/oil process.  The air was filled with excitement.  The artists ranged from those with almost no experience at all to professionals, so I had a lot of explaining to do! One of my goals was to encourage the artists to play, to experiment with a new technique and just let go.  So often we get hung up on goals, on making a product, on being 'perfect'. I read to them from Eric Maisel's book, " Coaching the Artist Within " , where he talks about the creative process. "To create, we have to take the bad with the good.  We're bound to write bad paragraphs along with good ones.  That's the eternal law.  We can get rid of those bad paragraphs later on , but first we must write them.  Otherwise we won't write anything at all .  If we try to write only the good paragraphs, we are three-quarters of the way toward paralysis.  The name that ...