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I see myself as a general creative with no penchant for any particular discipline though I thirst for wisdom and guidance from masters of any art-form and this includes writing so I'm reading Startle and Illuminate - Carol Shields on Writing, edited by her daughter Anne Giardini and grandson Nicholas Giardini. This book was recommended to me by an editor who believes it to be rich in information for aspiring writers.

In this book, the author speaks about assigning the following to her classes: "Write a description of a room without using any adjectives". I've been pondering this and walking about observing everything around me and describing the things I see without using adjectives. To be sure I fully understood, I looked up the meaning of it and this is what I found: It's a noun and according to Merriam-Webster, it means, "... typically serving as a modifier of a noun to denote a quality of the thing named, to indicate its quantity or extent, or to specify a thing as distinct from something else."

If I wrote: A light streams through the gauze, inhaling, exhaling, moisture forming swelling to beads tracing a path revealing the pale. Does a picture form in your mind? Did I use any adjectives? 

I surmise writing a description without adjectives to be somewhat abstract where the reader is constructing her own imagery or understanding of the piece. I'm thinking this is similar to abstract painting. What is an adjective in painting? When I paint, am I giving away colour, texture, atmosphere, depth, line, representation? When I read a beautiful sentence resplendent in adjectives to describe a place, I am transported. Would my response to an adjectiveless description have the same effect, or would I delve deeper into some imagined version of it quite unlike the author's vision? I don't know. I'll be paying a lot more attention to this when I'm reading.

Applying this to abstract painting, I suspect if the artist has honed her skills, mastered her medium to a degree and is able to advance her knowledge by pushing the limits of what she already knows comfortably, she may be able to make an abstract work without using adjectives. The same would apply to anyone who dedicates any amount of effort and time, with or without experience, to make beautiful abstracts and in doing so is honing her skills and knowledge of her mediums. In my painting there could be a pretty woman (representational) or there could be a series of lines, dabs, colours arranged in a way maybe suggesting a pretty woman, or a not pretty woman, no woman or an arrangement of lines, dabs and colours that are interesting to you or not. If I read a sentence and don't understand, I will read it again to see if I can grasp a sense of what it can clarify for me. Does my mind wander? Does a memory pop into my head? Do I feel something and want to run away screaming? Do I feel like laughing? Do I love it and want to buy it and look at it everyday? When you look at an abstract painting, what do you see, feel, taste, smell, hear? If it doesn't please you, do you move on or take some time to be with it? Sometimes we sit through a movie we don't like because we paid to see it, or our best friend is loving it, or we finish the novel because we don't like to leave things unfinished. Whatever, we're all different. I'm curious about you, that's why I'm asking.

Next weekend I'm having an exhibition of my most recent works which are abstract. If you've read my previous email, you know these are a series of paintings done intuitively and have revealed a strong connection to nature. I'm not known for abstract painting, yet I'm very excited to share these with you as I want to know what you're experiencing when you view them. There's no right or wrong way to look at or feel about my work, so I'm inviting you to take some time to read these and I hope you'll share your findings with me without using any adjectives.

I always swim with my eyes open so I can see the colours of the sea, the creatures swimming by, the swaying sea grasses, hoping for the watchful seal to swim beneath me and wishing the snout of a big orca will suddenly appear. I swim alone in crashing waves and blowing wind. I swim alone at night my nude body sparkling with bioluminescence.

You may tell me you're afraid of swimming in the ocean and you'd never swim alone, especially not at night. You tell me you think I'm brave. When I enter the water, I trust everything is fine and will be. I take a deep breath and consciously relax all my muscles and float like a jellyfish. The cold water no longer feels cold. I meet with it and stay for as long as I want. I become the sea.

I walk at night, alone in the woods. Guided only by the openess beneath my feet and the midnight blue through the silhouette of the trees, I sense the surroundings. You may tell me you wouldn't feel safe, I tell you it only feels spooky if you believe your mind. When I follow my heart and trust, it's magical and my mind relaxes. I listen to the songs of the night as owls and critters harmonize along with the rhythm of my heart. You may want to try this sometime and become the forest.

I face a blank canvas on the easel. On my palette next to it, I've squeezed out transparent yellow, oxide, alizarin, blue, brown and opaque white. Transparent because I can see the light through them. Have you ever noticed the light glowing through papery petals, or the fleeting turquoise of a cresting wave, or the shimmer on a pearl? It's like that. I mix piles of colours with a liquid galkyd to thin this transparent paint further and roll it all out on the carefully oil primed surface. This surface won't stain and I can wipe away colour to reveal the bright of the canvas. I mix fresh colour with cold wax and it looks and feels like velvet. Do you know this feeling? After every application, I look back at a mirror returning the image in reverse and it reveals it's desires to me. A line here, break it up. A dab there, press harder. Skip the brush along this texture and watch what happens. I gasp in awe and vibrate with delight. I don't know where we are going. I like it this way. I become my paintings.

When I look back on my life, believing I needed to arrive at a determined destination and never did, I now see there is no such thing for me. In fluid transformation, I am becoming and I hope I shall not arrive. I'm not courageous or brave, I'm not afraid. I try things. I fail. I become somewhere new. How about you? 

Until next time, I hope you can indulge in some quietude in a dark corner of your yard and listen to your courage.