My 10,000 Hours

It may seem strange to you that I am using a painting from 2011 to talk about the end of 2012. This year was a such remarkable year in may ways but  the most meaningful event this year was hearing from my painting colleagues that "you are getting better".."your work has really taken a leap forward."

On first hearing this compliment, no surprise it would make me think "Yikes!Was I bad before?". But truly I have felt the shift within my work and myself. I wrote about it in a blog during the painting of the image above in a blog post titled "Experience the Mysterious" on June 1, 2011. My work has indeed shifted and not in ways I want to bother to analyze with my brain but in ways that I want to continue to process with my hands  through painting. So, what COULD be behind this shift?  I will credit having put in my 10,000 hours ..not of classes but of practice and exploration. This is Malcolm Gladwell's theory of mastery from his book Outliers.

Some people write about the 10,000 hours as  the magic key to success but for me it is simply about competency and confidence. Through practice, my skills advanced. Through explorations, my thinking developed.Through doing my painting were made.

The teacher now is me.