On the ambivalence of writing about a sustainable painting practice, while not being able to fulfil it.
***Note: Over on my creative studio’s newsletter I’ve started a series called “Inside Painting”, where I share ones-a-month letters on sustainable, eco-friendly painting, and about what it’s like to be a painter / artist in this world. It’s mostly reflections, thoughts, a bit of research and some critical thinking. This text is from Issue 2 and it’s cross-published on my newsletter as well. But it feels important to me, to also share this piece over here as well, as it’s about a notion and beliefs that have hold me back from sharing what I know for a long time. Here you can read more about Inside Painting.***
A few things have hold me back in the past, when it came to writing more about a sustainable painting practice and one of them is that often I’m not or only in parts able to fulfil my own standards or rather act according to the knowledge I have. So, over time, these “standards” became merely ambitions and aspirations, yet I’m still struggling with the complex belief that you can only “preach what you practice”. However, by now, I also know that trying to change your studio and painting practice in a sustainable way, is also so much connected to limitations like money, time and space that I decided to rather live with the ambivalence, than not start sharing about it.
Having the knowledge to change my painting practice and my studio set-up gives me a lot of power, but not being able to fully commit, makes it feel inconsistent and lacking. Still, having a fully eco-friendly and sustainable painting practice requires much more money, time and space than I have expected, when I started this journey. Yes, I’m a privileged woman, I’m a privileged white woman. And yet I’m tight on money, and yet my days only have 24 hours and yet I don’t have the space. Because, right now, if you want to fully commit to it, you have to make most of your supplies on your own. There’s no way around it, because almost all painting suppliers don’t offer transparent information. However, to make it all on your own, you need space and time, but to be able to buy from those few who offer information, you need a lot of money. Which makes this whole affair, incredibly unfair and difficult.
However, I’m a perfectionist in the end and I want to fully commit, even though my demands are high and my aspirations rather impossible to achieve. In some way, I have set myself up to failure. I want to be the painter I aspire to be; I want to make eco-friendly, sustainable art; I want to have a business that doesn’t harm the environment, or animals, or fellow humans, but I’m also constantly facing my own limitations. Besides, somewhere deep down, I know that – in a weird way – a part of me believes that art that wants to highlight and tell stories about the beauty of the world, but is created with toxic ingredients that harm so many parts of this world in advance, doesn’t honour our world and does not truly honour the impact art can have. Through this, art is only perceived as a higher good, as a piece of home décor and status. It brings nature inside our homes, without making the effort of connecting the art and the natural world.
I’m aware that this rather radical point of view may upset many creatives, and I also know it’s not right, isn’t it? There’s more than black and white to it and yet it’s the secret standard that has ingrained itself in my head and that at least I compare my own doings to, when it comes to making art. At the same time, I have gathered enough knowledge by now that I’m aware it would likely take a lifetime to arrive somewhere close to it - as long as you don’t have endless hours, endless space and endless money. Maybe, even, I will never achieve it myself, because it’s a perfectionist’s idea in an imperfect, struggling world – to be an eco-friendly artist. Until then, I have to live with the ambivalence of writing and sharing knowledge that I’m not able to fulfil; I have to live with the tension that it creates. But at least, you get access to knowledge in an easier way, you get to decide which changes you want to see in your own practice, where you want to take action. At least, I may be making your lives easier or just help you start reflecting about it as well.
Just before I started to write this text, I finished a small book. It’s new and written in German by Luisa Neubauer, a very well-known German climate activist who is involved in many political discussions, non-political organisations and had a leading role in Germanys Fridays for Future actions. Her book is called “Was wäre, wenn wir mutig sind?” (transl.: What if we were brave?) and in the final chapter of her book, is a paragraph that felt so fitting for today’s topic.
She wrote (translated by me:):
“We’re never just part of one, but of many stories; we’re standing on both sides of every small or big conflict line in this climate crisis. We’re never just identity or belief, never just activists or just a dad, just a worried student or a career-oriented person, just someone who needs to earn for rent, or just someone, who cried upon seeing the images of the latest flooding, never just with climate anxiety or unconcerned, never just fossil or climate-friendly, never just a part of the solution or of the problem. Living in this climate crisis means living a contradictory life, a life between worlds. Between collapse and emergence, between farewell and new beginning, between nostalgia and being afraid of what’s to come, between living and survival, between all that’s to love and hate.
The human existence through the ecological collapse is not unambiguous. […] It’s what a changing world between yesterday and tomorrow does to us.” (p. 105f.)
My painting practice, my studio set-up, my art business, my life, all is highly contradictory. I try to give my best, I try to learn more, I try to reflect, I try to implement as much as I can, with the limitations I face because of who I am, because of where I live, and because of so many other factors that are beyond my control. It’s all ambivalent, there’s tension, it feels like standing between it all and daring to share, even though I might not even be the best fit. There are better experts, and even though I don’t aspire to be one, this topic is too important to me to stay silent. I came to understand that, sometimes, we don’t need to hear an expert speaking their truth but hear about the everyday truth of someone who’s just trying to give their best, who’s trying to make it happen within their day-to-day life. It may give us the permission to just try it ourselves, in the imperfect, chaotic, contradictory way that reflects what it means to be standing in-between.
I’m afraid of being criticised, of getting it wrong because I don’t have all the information, because I don’t have ten-plus years of experience, because it’s all imperfect. Still, I want to share what I know, because there’s too few, accessible information out there. And wouldn’t it be great to, one day, create a painting that honours this beautiful natural world in more ways than just picturing it? Because, you know, maybe, if we don’t start now, then in 50- or 100-years’ time, we will have these beautiful paintings, but outside there’s nothing left of what we’ve been picturing, and our creative pursuits have been a part of the destruction.
About me: Hello, I’m Mareike, the writer of this newsletter hills to heart. Besides being a writer I’m also a painter, creating landscape and floral works with (mainly) oil paints. I share about my paintings on my website and also have a dedicated blog, which you are welcome to explore. Feel free to leave a heart, comment or share my writings.