Maybe it was the paint lid that didn’t get shut, or the unexpected brush of your cat’s tail on a painting in progress. Tracey Maras discusses how these eye-rolling “disasters” sometimes offer a unique value of their own.
By Tracey Maras
Has it happened to you? That moment when “disaster” strikes. Okay, well maybe not a disaster, but eye-rolling exasperation. It happens to us all, eventually.
My most recent “disaster” occurred as I was photographing several completed paintings. As I turned to retrieve another painting, I noticed my cat sitting in front of one of my unframed pastel paintings, gently sweeping her tail back and forth across the surface of the painting. She continued calmly watching me as I became unhinged as I watched a pile of pastel dust accumulate beneath her tail.
Was it a “disaster?” At the moment? Yes. Looking back now, it makes me smile. She was just doing what cats do. And within a week, I had already finished that painting…again.
We all experience these moments of exasperation.
• Forgetting to secure the lid before closing the box of pastels, with the pastels all tumbling out.
• Working en plein air, the easel tips, and your painting goes flying.
• Worse yet, the painting lands face down.
A Tern of Phrase, by Tracey Maras.
• Inadvertently placing your paintbrush in your cup of coffee or tea rather than the water.
• Wearing as much pastel or paint on yourself as what ends up on the painting. And to be honest, that is part of the fun.
Some of these will serve as life lessons, such as working en plein air on a windy beach. I didn’t realize that the wind and moisture in the air were permanently embedding pastel pigment into my off-white shirt. That shirt is now reserved for plein air adventures.
But these are all life lessons. Perhaps they are lessons to do things differently in an attempt to avoid these eye-rolling opportunities. But I think life lessons also teach us not to take it all too seriously. Moments happen. It’s part of life. Will I still be unhinged in the moment? Probably. But I hope to smile and maybe laugh later on when I share my “disasters” with other artists.