My Hand in Curious Motion; A Kiss and a Promise

Art Every Day Month, days 6-11

6. Still in love with sumac leaves.
7. Playing with Prismacolor sticks.
8. Entranced by fall foliage.
9. Sunset.
10. Purple berries and green leaves. I love
    purple and green.
11. Ispired by hearing Lynda Barry on
    NPR.
12. What are the colors in this paint set?

My Hand in Curious Motion

Yesterday, my Delight of the Day was listening to Lynda Barry on NPR'sTalk of the Nation. I was driving home from work and there she was. I've never heard of her before, but waited in the car until the interview was over.

Her new book is about doodling your way out of writer's block. She is sure that moving our hands to write or draw causes our brains to think in different ways than they do otherwise. It was one of the callers who inspired me.  A political cartoonist, he talked about getting his ideas from his "hand moving in curious motion."

When it was time to do art, I let my hand lead, doodling with a paintbrush.  My hand definitely moved in curious ways, making marks I would not have expected. That day's image continues to call to me.  I want to work with it more but decided to move on today because it feels like I need to live with it for a longer before I know what I want to do.

A Kiss and a Promise

Moving on made me remember a phrase my mother used when she felt that the house needed to be cleaned but we didn't have time. "Just give it a kiss and a promise," she would say, meaning that we would come back later to do a more thorough job.

It's a wonderful expression, especially for those of us who would like to be perfect. It's not that I'm doing a bad job. It's not that I'm abandoning my "need" for quality. Instead, I'm doing the best I can for now and moving forward with the intention of coming back.

The kiss is respect for the present moment; the promise is resolve to live in hope.