Using Joy as a North Star: Meet Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher (Ep.48) had a life changing moment.
It was five years into her pursuing art seriously. She had returned to England after living abroad in America, had turned 50 and realized that she wanted pursue her passion: art.
As part of it (five years in), she took Nicholas Wilton’s 12 week Creative Vision Program (CVP).
“It was one catapulting experience that changed everything,” says Fletcher
Here’s what happened: In week 3 or 4 of the program, Wilton gave the cohort the assignment to play with paint with no goal of anything else. Just play.
“That had not occurred to me,” says Fletcher of the assignment. “That sounds crazy after five years [of painting], but just playing without any objective of making something hadn't occurred to me.”
Fletcher made a small painting on wood. And it was the first time she felt herself reflected in her own work.
“I looked at it, and I felt myself in it. And that was an amazing feeling. It was completely abstract. It wasn't very good. But it just felt like me.”
WORKING INTUITIVELY
Fletcher is an intuitive painter. What that means for Fletcher is that she follows her joy.
“And that doesn't mean happy happy dance dance all the time,” says Fletcher of this approach. “It means [trusting] that inner sense of I'm doing the right thing for me.”
That trust is implicit in everything Fletcher does in the studio. And while the process she works throught o create paintings is always changing, the trust she has in herself and in it, does not.
Let’s look at Fletcher’s current process:
It’s one built on layering. She often layers both paint and collage. She then uses an orbital sander to remove layers and create textures. It’s a process of addition and subtraction and then more addition.
“And at some point, something in the painting will just say, Yes, this is the direction I want to go in. And if I'm lucky, I catch that moment and know to follow it,” says Fletcher, “And when I'm not paying attention, I might bulldoze past that moment, and then I'll have to keep going and going.”
But if and when Fletcher misses the moment, she doesn’t worry. She knows there will be another. And so she keeps working.
“I just pursue it until the point where it shows me what it wants to be. And this sounds a bit woo woo but I really think paintings want to come out of you. And you just have to get out of the way. And that's the constant challenge that I have.”
SYSTEMS FOR INTUITIVE PAINTING
(add in that she honors her way of working)
Fletcher has found a way of working that is incredibly freeing to her. And just like so many other areas of art, it involves solid systems.
If you want to be a daily painter, there are certain systems around materials and surface size that will help you paint daily.
If you are a plein air painter, there are systems around the type of materials you bring and how you pack them and have them ready.
Abstract and non representational painters also have incredibly thoughtful systems same as other painters.
Fletcher’s systems allow her to do the deep thinking and quick action art that are the hallmark of her teaching and painting.
System 1: Safe Painting-Focused Ecosystem
First, Fletcher wants to create a place where she can work the way she works best.
In order to do this, she doesn’t rely on her art as her primary source of income. This may seem adjacent to making art but it’s absolutely critical for her way of working.
And the reason comes down to pressure:
“I never wanted the pressure to be on me to produce paintings in order to pay the bills, because I know it wouldn't make me happy,” says Fletcher.
For Fletcher, a series may take a month or it may take two years. She has no idea going in and she has set up a system so that it absolutely doesn't matter. Because art isn’t what pays the bills, she can let something develop for as long as it needs.
This means she has created a safe environment for her to do her best work.
This doesn’t mean that Fletcher doesn’t sell her work. She absolutely does. But she’s not RELYING on a consistent source of income from her paintings. And this allows her to create without any outside pressure on her paintings’ development.
Her paintings make money, but it’s teaching that pays the rent.
“Teaching really makes me happy. So that can pay the bills.”
The result: There's no pressure.
“If it takes me two years to make a series of paintings. I'm okay because I'm not going, how am I going to pay the rent this month or anything?”
System 2: Patience in the Process
Second, while her painting seems fast (and it is) she is incredibly patient with her process.
“I am fast in the way I apply paint. But I'm super patient in how long it takes a painting to be done. I don't rush it.”
As an artist, Fletcher isn't in a hurry. Some paintings may be finished in a couple of sessions. But that’s quite rare. Because she works on a bunch of paintings at once, sometimes a whole series will take anywhere from 3 months to two years.
“I'm OKAY with that. I'm in no hurry because the joy of it for me is the process,” says Fletcher
System 3: Avoiding Preciousness
Third, Fletcher isn’t precious about saving any one area of a painting. Her loyalty is to the painting (and the series).
She is constantly falling in love with layers, but she trusts herself to know that it isn’t worth saving a small section she likes if the painting as a whole isn’t working.
This is part of Fletcher trusting her process.
She knows that there are endless good paintings in her. She trusts that and so she doesn’t need to be precious about this small area or this one painting. Her devotion is to the work and she knows that if she keeps moving forward, she will end up loving what she creates.
“It's the experience of just knowing,” says Fletcher, “in the end, this will get somewhere better…So we don't have to hang on to that little bit, we can take a picture of it if we want to keep it forever. And then just cover it up.”
System 4: Loving It
Fourth, Fletcher knows a painting is finished when she loves it.
This seems deceptively simple. It can take many of us years to KNOW what WE love. Fletcher isn’t thinking about whether her best friend loves it or if someone down the street loves it or if it follows current trends.
No.
She is only interested in it if SHE loves it. And she trusts that wholly.
It also means she’s not asking for peoples’ opinions. (Except for a select few.) She has learned to trust her own instincts and her own voice above all else.
That trust has allowed her to make work that is wholly hers.
As Fletcher has moved into more non-representational work, she leans harder into this trust.
“This is a challenge for me at the moment because my work is going in a slightly different direction… And I love it. But do I think anyone else?” Fletcher says. “It's very rough and ready [and I worry] perhaps this will look like child's play to anybody else. And I always have to go back to Yeah, but I love it.”
And that’s all Fletcher needs to know.
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