Establish a regular practice of being astonished
I have a good friend who feels that is it unfortunate that I have chosen to commit myself to relentless scribbling, because I am skilled at rendering the likeness of things and people. I don’t blame him for feeling that way. There are many things I, too, wish were different than they are. All I can say is that this is a harder, more engaging, more surprising, more gratifying way to grapple with the angel.
The hardest thing, the impossible thing, is to come up with something that feels genuinely distinctive, that isn’t a matter of doing a thing better or worse than others doing a similar thing. Whether I’m ultimately successful at this is an open question I constantly deal with as I iterate toward that unreachable version of the thing each painting ends up being. I will say this. The feeling of standing back and looking at something I made that I didn’t know I had in me, on the occasions when it happens, is indescribable.