On Obsessive Planning

Part of what has enabled me to keep working while maintaining a full time teaching job and raising three kids is obsessive planning.  Like I said in a previous post, I like to have some canvases in all stages.  When you have a family like mine, and you make time to work, there is no time to get into the studio and think, all of my thinking has to be done ahead of time.  Many people marvel at how a cheetah will hunt.  Speed, determination, and skill.  What most people don't know is how much a cheetah's life depends on catching what he chases.  So much energy is spent on a chase that the cheetah's life depends on him/her succeeding at that moment.  My painting regiment is similar.  In this life, when there is time, I must be productive.  For this reason I have countless pages of notes in my book about ideas for paintings, as well as an ongoing inventory of materials.  If lacking motivation when I get to the studio I gesso something, stretch something, or at worst clean.  I try to play chess, and think ahead, I can't afford to waste time.  These pictures are typical pages from my sketchbook that I call "ART NOW."  On the left are the pages from the work I brought to AIB, and the right, my current planning of paintings to be done on this trip.  I enjoy the build up, the preparing...this is where painting becomes metaphorical for life.