The maddening quiet before battle, toeing the edge of a cold pool, the first plodding steps of a 5 mile run, the first 100 miles of a 10 hour drive, the first few inches up a tall mountain…All unpleasant reluctant times where someone might hesitate and try to avoid the toil and trouble, to willingly give up the rewards of a struggle so they may bypass any unpleasantness or discomfort.

I feel these feelings and urge these urges – wanting to stay on the couch and avoid the untold amounts of work and concentration, fighting doubt and the fear of failure – when I sit down to paint. I often begin knowing what I need to paint and have a good idea of how I want to pull it off, but as I begin, the emptiness of the space I am to fill is like a mountain of coal and the paint brush a tiny shovel.

I know all about just putting one foot in front of the other and so I am able to force myself to plunge into the icy waters of artistic expression. Once I’m in, I’m in. I won’t get out, I won’t give up. It is as hard to quit, harder even, than it was to begin. And when I’m finished, too exhausted to continue making positive decisions about a piece, and before I can allow myself to depart and hit the bed, I sit back and enjoy any successes and start to plan for my next struggle against the forces of chaos, trying to coral the cat-like elements of two dimensional form as they dart and run in every direction.

In other words, art is a bitch. I real pain in the ass. I’m so glad I have the reward of a finished piece and any praise and money that it may bring because the act itself is not unlike marching hip deep in shit.

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Posted by Dick Van der Wurst

Having descended down into South Texas through the Hill Country one day long ago, Dick never claimed to be Texan, but his German heritage and love for tacos is something he shares with the inhabitants of the region. Having earned an MFA from Miami University, OH, he spent the worst years of his life up north, maturing artistically and refining an Iconoclasmatic Pop Art™ style shaped by his experiences as a recovering Catholic, cancer survivor and optimistic existentialist. He lives and works in his humble turquoise studio-home (Dick’s WurstHaus Art Shanty) near downtown San Antonio.