"Bucky's Mug"  iPad drawing, 6"x8"

Let's begin today's blog with a side trip. A good Taoist walks where the path leads-unless he doesn't.

We start with a disarming question: What if God created Evolution, as a mechanism to bring Change into the universe? This question, this particular and precise posing of the "Creation/Evolution Debate", could actually help heal a deep and long standing rift between Science and Religion. And to look a little closer, isn't Evolution just a process; not a Theory? Basically, a verb. And who but God could create such a brilliant, complex process as Evolution? Pure Genius! (And while we're at it, why doesn't Science just admit that it's trying to figure out how God built things? Just askin'...)

And this applies to painting? How? 

Just like the word "evolution", the word "painting" is both noun and verb.(So is "being", as in Human Being. Bucky Fuller's quote on the mug above asserts that we are processes-and Bucky got it right.) Throughout this series of blogs (and eventual possible book) I want to focus on painting as verb.

Every good painter I have known has had one thing in common, one simple evolution; a quest for technical mastery,followed- usually with some Existential angst- by a search for,well,something...
We learn facts and procedures and theories. We take classes and buy videos and magazines. We even try to make sense of all the artistic Isms; Cubism, Expressionism, and blahblahblah. Sometimes we follow "masters"-which makes no sense to me; why spend your painting career trying to be the second somebody else? We try to learn how to paint, to find/create our "style". Painters can know a lot about painting, but knowledge isn't enough- it's just a launching pad. I've long told my students that it's Art when you DON'T know what you're doing, and once you DO know what you're doing, that's Craft. A good painting is a blend of Art and Craft- and don't call yourself a painter if you neglect  to master your Craft. Call yourself a hack.

So, how does Taoism fit into all this? Lao-tzu said it best; " The wise are not learned, the learned are not wise."

What gift is needed to get beyond knowledge, beyond learning? (Actually, what is needed is not a gift, but a Present.) More later...

PS- I know that last blog I promised to go further into how a painter should let his eyes be his brain, and some other stuff. I haven't forgotten, and will get back to that. It all rolls into one big painterly ball. 

Thank you for your time. Until next time...