“When I make a painting, I observe, but I also transform. You’re observing that they are this color, this shape, this size. They look like this, they feel like this, they smell like this. And then you try to put those things together in a painting.
“… You’re always frightened to start—you don’t want to because it’s too difficult. It’s much easier to look out of the window or read a book. But then, when you’re actually in it, you escape from everything.”
Rose Wylie, “Reading Upside Down: A Conversation with Rose Wylie” by Emily Stokes in Paris Review, 7 December 2021
Take a piece of paper and a pencil or pen or some paint and begin. Somewhere, anywhere. The less you feel able to because of world / national / personal events, the more it’s probably time well spent. Start anyway, setting aside the expectation and desire for a worthy result. Give yourself 15 minutes to push through the anguish, then put it aside and start again.
