(The Abilities Required To Inspire Sacred Things)
He always says a few short mantras in the form of a quiet prayer to himself as he carefully selects and lays out his choice of brushes and colours he would be using for that particular day, he would say, ‘there’s a certain creative doorway you must mentally pass through before you can ever even have a hope in making love to the canvas’ you see, it was his belief that each new canvas should be treated like a beautiful woman you were being intimate with for the first time, the same care with which she would be touched is the same care with which you should use the brush, from beginning to end, from the very first time you approached ’til the moment you departed, he said, ‘each and every stroke should be exact, precise and accounted for by the artist, nothing should be accidental or without reason, the artist must understand and be in tune with the principles governing the higher self, allowing him to account for all he produces both in the conscious mind and in the sub-conscious’.
He often spoke of karmic law, applying it in the idea that the canvas could only be a reflection of what the painter had initially put into it, hence he never failed to stress the importance of preparation and forming the right energy within the space in which you were going to work, for this reason he had designed his easel so that it could safely hold a candle burning at both sides, he said for him, the presence of them added something to his environment and his creative spirit, he said, ‘but each painter has his own thing, whether its candles, the smell of incense, a particular type of lighting, music, even food whatever, but he will have something, even if the painter doesn’t realise it himself consciously, there will always be something used to enhance mood, even if involuntary, but the key to mastery is being aware of the affects of their presence and to then choose appropriately according to what you were aiming to achieve for that particular painting’.
He never kept the subjects of painting and the mind far apart, he often talked about the
importance of developing a photographic memory, he said, ‘the painter must become like a sponge, absorbing all that he sees, soaking up the entirety of the atmosphere that surrounds him, both indoors and out’. And on the subject of versatility he would say, ‘the artist must master how to alter and shift from a blissful state of mind to a despondent state of mind at the blink of an eye’, he said this is necessary in terms of the artist reaching different extremes within his art, he would say, ‘the artist must learn how to make triple M’s out of double M’s’ meaning the artist must learn how to make magnificently mellow moments out of melancholy moods and vice-versa, ‘even if he doesn’t feel that way he must create it because its the result he wants, which are the thoughts and the emotions that are stirred in all that see his
work’.
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