“Sneak Preview”: Details of paintings-in-process for my upcoming book |
© Laurie Doctor

How do I hear my own voice in the midst of the world’s clatter and disaster? The truth of change and impermanence leads me back to the same question: Where do I find refuge from all the heartbreak of our world? There are so many competing demands that it is a struggle to preserve some sense of order, quality and dignity.

I ask myself these questions heading into my studio to write and paint. For me, the answer is always the same — get still enough to hear the voice inside. In my studio, I get quiet with my hands. I reach for my favorite fountain pen, or that tube of Vermillion. This is the way I can eventually come down from my head-full-of-doubt-and-fear, rest in my body intelligence, and open my imagination.

Consolation and imagination can also be found by paying attention to night and dreams. Even if I don’t remember a dream, staying still when I just begin to wake up, staying in that liminal place, is a lovely way to catch ideas and dream fragments. Solutions come unbidden that don’t occur to me in full daylight. Any thread of thought or dream will do — there is nothing too small, too ugly or too silly — and then I make a note of it. Or sometimes I just notice how my mind has already begun to spin and worry, and stay put, refusing to get out of bed, until I find one moment of delight.

Here is my recurring dream, my consolation from last night:

I have lost my glasses. I am afraid I will not be able to see. I find myself in a room with a man standing
beside a table with two pair of large frame glasses on it. He says: “You already know how to see in the dark.”
He hands me both pairs, as now there are two of me, and says: “These glasses are for learning how to see in the light.”
Then he takes us to the end of a lit corridor. I see both of me, standing at the entrance. The corridor is filled with almost unbearable luminosity, without any visible source. I understand that I am to learn to see in the light by walking through this corridor. I am afraid I won’t be able to do this, and proceed slowly. Partway down I see something on the ground and recognize Venetian blinds. (Curious, I later think to myself, that word “blind”.) I look up and see that the blinds fit perfectly in an opening above me, and wonder how that could be. When I look back down I notice that now there is a painting lying on the ground where the blinds had been. When I see it I know that the painting has always been.

So when I recalled the dream this morning I set about painting, beginning with the image of Venetian blinds, and heartened by knowing the painting already exists; consoled by the idea that painting is more an act of remembrance than having to invent something new.

I am slowly becoming aware that it is easier, and less frightening, to fret and complain and doubt — to be aware of my shortcomings, and everything that is wrong — than it is to walk
into the light, to shine.

Here is a detail of a painting-in-process inspired by the image of Venetian blinds: