Decisions

Decisions decisions.  I'm noticing that today I am chasing my tail whirl pooling but still sinking in the abyss of indecision..  I encountered the first decision in the morning and put off eating breakfast, then it was how to finish off my mohair shawl.  I ran out of yarn and needed to make some important color and design decisions. I went one way and then the other and even followed the fools errand and went out looking for more yarn and came home empty.   Now I'm sorting books on the NY times book review, Amazon, and Audible.com looking for the perfect listening material for working in my studio.......as if this is a life changing decision............I have a headache from weighing out these heady decisions and still haven't decided.
Painting would be a welcome respite where one decision seems to guide the hand to the next decision and there is an orderly sequence of motions to reach the end.  I have painted long enough to know that decisions come while we're laying the foundation....Begin and their WILL be a painting.  I start the ritual. I prime the canvas, I lay out a challenging, intriguing palette.  I made a decision about my palette a few weeks ago and sticking to it for a month or two........ lemon yellow, cad yellow medium, prussian blue, indian yellow, alizarin, napthol crimson, and veridian and titantium white......maybe a little ivory black.  .(makes it easier and I like the control.)    I  pick up the mess on the floor from yesterday and then the beginning starts to hatch.  The  size, the colors, something I glimpsed on my way to the studio, a flash of a scene from a photo on the wall, even the putting on of the little apron I wear, start to propel me toward the first stroke and the laying in of a proportionally pleasing arrangement...............I KNOW in a painting it doesn't have to be a significant  life changing decision. As I begin, I know that I will go somewhere.  Part of it I know and part of it I don't know.   There is a weighing of my sensibilities more from a feeling level than from a thinking level that serves as the compass once I start.  Part of the intrigue for me is the dance that you do with your own intentions and the accidental or imagined  directions that the medium creates.  I think I'm inspired now...going to the studio for awhile to just START.