Rachel Wallace Studio

I attended my first oil class today with and got that taste of being in the presence of great talent. The room was full of it. I experienced that very interesting combination of feeling very, very inexperienced (my flaws and lazy painting habits suddenly revealed under Claude's straightforward and quite marvellous tutorship) and very deeply, quietly excited for the potential possible for learning as I lean into the space.

How wonderful and startling to stumble into something like this.

It feels like work, and that is good. This lazy little butt has been hiding behind colour and tracing and projection and paying little attention to where I really need to focus: proportion: shapes, position. And the simple yet difficult, slow work of 'seeing things as they really are, and not as you think they are'

And of course, I'm not dismissing the power of getting started and practising and playing with art where you are at (I've done it for years) and I have learned a lot and created art I like and love; but today was the reminder that if you want to move to the next level, you need to be willing to put in the work; to confront yourself and take the place of the student. It's wonderful and scary all at once, as it should be.

It's only then that we move to the next level, (which of course, is different for each of us).