I don’t like darkness and I don’t like pain, in spite of the fact my own life has taught me that’s where the growth happens, that’s the most fertile soil for creativity. And yet, when it comes to dealing with it, I’m like a dog, turning around and around in my bed, trying to find a better way to lie down.
Sure. I don’t like pain. Who does?
In writing, as in art, my best stuff always comes when I work from dark to light. And yet, whenever I sit down to paint, I start with a white canvas. Light to dark. Why? Same thing happens when I write. I have no problem creating characters with interesting thought lives, witty dialogue and memorable experiences. Heck, I’ll even kill them off if I have to, but when it comes to hurting them… to prolonging their emotional pain, I freeze up like a February stream. Why?
Because single focus creates white space and white space pulls the eye away from the goal to the great empty nothingness surrounding it. From there, the imagination begins to doubt. It asks what’s going to be there? What hasn’t happened yet?
Ironically, it is extremely difficult to cut darkness in at that point.
Darkness must be preexistent.
For example, don’t you hate it when you’re reading a book and everything is going too fine for the main character? Nervously, you wait for the other shoe to drop… only it never does? The story ends and you close the book feeling vaguely dissatisfied. No dragons were slain. No mountains scaled. Just lots of fluff without any fire.
Even worse is when the author adds drama as an afterthought. They throw in a fiery plane crash and an outbreak of the bubonic plague late in the third act, as if the reader doesn’t realize there are only five pages left in the book. How much suspense can be built in five pages?
Depth of character, it would seem, works best when it’s an organic process.
When I begin a painting with a black canvas, I'm in familiar territory: I know what I have to do. From the first touch of brush to canvas, there is nowhere to go but up and out of an inky pit of darkness. Slowly, the colors emerge as tiny rays of light begin piercing the black gessoed canvas, outlining form and shape, bringing the subject to life.
Interestingly enough, black space has the opposite effect of white space. White space in a painting distracts from the subject. The human mind wanders inside white space, creating its own storyline. But black space repels the viewer, frightening their attention back toward the center where the subject is happily nestled inside a secure halo of light.
Come in from the dark, the subject seems to say, stay here with me, where you’ll be warm and safe and happy.
Two months ago when I left home, I didn’t want to go back into that dark night. I wanted to stay on the ranch, in a shrinking halo of light. I wanted to be warm and safe and happy, blissfully ignorant of the wolves clawing at the door.
But God knew better. He knew it was time for me to get back in the fight.
Ignoring the whiny little girl with the I-don’t-wanna-go-to-battle-today excuses, he set me on my feet, dragged my steel-toed boots on, packed my lunchbox, stuffed a hardhat on my head and sent me packing into the fray with a loving swat to my backside.
Daily, I’m tempted to feel sorry for myself. Tempted to be a crybaby.
Clutching my SuperGirl lunchbox to my chest, I try to look into the darkness: to remember how much worse it can get. Broke isn’t the same as bankrupt and bankrupt isn’t the same as dead. Aging isn’t the same as cancer and cancer isn’t the same as dead. Alone isn’t the same as abandoned and abandoned isn’t the same as dead.
In fact, if I step back and take a long view of my life, I realize that there is very little white space left. I am surrounded by a darkness filled with slain dragons and mountains scaled. And since I’m not dead yet, I’m pretty sure there are more waiting in the darkness. For all of us.
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