film negatives and unplayed keys

i was thinking of how i’m defined as much by what i don’t do well as by what i do. this occurred to me as i was painting a futuristic distant planet scene on a table. i’m always saying i can’t draw, cause it comes so hard. i have to fuss over it and erase and re-do. but i’m very good at imagining abstract scenes and things in my mind and painting them. i’m bad at perspective, but very good at filling in the blanks with random bits of brushstrokes that are “suggestive” of something; forming shapes that leave interpretation open to the viewer, taking them where it takes them.

i’ve come to see my lack of artistic ability coupled with an insatiable desire to do artistic things, as a way to force expansion of the traits i do possess but haven’t integrated. strong points within me are my infinite (literally never-ending) imagination, wide-open view of the universe, and an intuitive sense of the “origin of materiality”. when a group of us sits down to draw, making cards or whatever, someone will invariably say... i don’t know what to draw. i Never have that problem! there are always tons of ideas circling around at the ready, and its more of a sticking point for me to choose just one of them. but i envy the ability my girls have to get concepts down so well on paper. they are gifted, each in their own way, all four of them, with drawing/artistic ability that far exceeds anything i could even dream of doing, in this lifetime anyway.

like on the piano, the keys you don’t play are the “negative” of the ones you do play, framing and supporting the chosen ones. objects, music, drawing, even ideas, have their existence by what they aren’t as much as by what they are.

i’m thinking of ascii code, how there are 8 bits (well, eight main ones framed by the parity and othersuch bits at beginning and end). they are the same bits, but either turned off or turned on, either chosen or not chosen to form the little piece of data (number letter symbol).

when i think in these terms, i don’t feel so bad about my lack of ability in particular areas, cause i know that overall, i contain it all. and the places where i’m turned off, are what so eloquently allows, and highlights, the places where i’m turned on.