One painting, over and over – seven layers of me

A Continuing Painting

This winter, I’m inspired by Judy Tuwaletstiwa’s approach of returning to one painting again and again, layering it with time, thought, and presence. Instead of creating many “finished” works, I’ll be living with a single canvas — an ongoing conversation rather than a product.  This idea has been bubbling away for months after I heard Judy’s story, so I am giving it a go!

What makes Judy’s approach revolutionary is her commitment to process over outcome. In the mid-1980s, she embarked on an extraordinary experiment: painting 100 different works on a single six-by-four-foot canvas, photographing each iteration before painting over it, knowing “none of the paintings on that canvas would ever exist except as memory.”

The process taught her how to let go. “What I learned is how to let go in art.” It didn’t matter whether I loved  or hated what I created. It was going to disappear.”.

Time became a magical ingredient. “We’re always in such a rush,” she observes, but real creative work requires patience with natural rhythms. (Summarised from a longer article: Link to full article)

Of course, artists have always reworked paintings and covered older work, but Judy goes one further by covering work she likes or would consider ‘finished’.    Painting as a process, not a product. 

So this winter, I’ll be making one painting — slowly, continuously, as a ritual of presence. A work that carries its own history in layers, never quite finished, always becoming.

Seven rivers, seven skins, seven layers of me.

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