Acceptance

This is a series of watercolors I began while staying in Tokyo in the Fall of 2015. They are what I could do with watercolors and ink pens of various sorts (I was especially enthralled with the brush pens available everywhere in Tokyo). I would improvise something on one page of a small watercolor block in a few hours and then start another. About 20 were completed in all, and I later came to call them "Acceptance", because the improvisational nature of the drawing felt like a kind of self-acceptance that really differed from the exacting standards of the large scale "Crossroads of Curiosity" I had createdin 2014-15.

These small mixed media watercolors were begun in Tokyo in the Fall of 2015 in the shadow and the aftermath of my "Crossroads of Curiosity” exhibition. While the grand display of murals in the Piazza of the British Library was a very satisfying achievement, on an inner creative level it felt monolithic in its focus, and also constrained to a high formality bereft of the intricate spontaneity of the inner psychic dynamics which I savor as an ecstasy of free expression. In going from artistic expression on a monumental scale in a formal setting in London to just scrawling away without a care on a tiny watercolor tablet at metro stations and cafes throughout Tokyo, I found a great liberation; I took the first steps towards real self-acceptance. These watercolors were made without concern for their outcome, i.e.; I didn’t care how they looked or whether they were good or not. Henry Miller wrote an essay on watercolor painting in which he exuberantly revels in his ineptitude as a watercolorist, frankly stating how he just didn’t give a damn how they turned out because he was having so much fun just being himself, accepting himself, and making a mess with the paints. My mind often turned to these sentiments of Miller’s, and the “Acceptance Watercolors” were made in a similar spirit. They are not just paintings, more importantly to me they are the by products of a spiritual evolution from egotistical insecurity to psychic self acceptance. And that is why I have titled the series, “Acceptance”.