Is it Empty or Full of Potential?

There's nothing quite like potential.  Think ingredients that could be cake or maybe gravy,  Think stem cells that could be, well, anything.

So it is with blank canvas.

I remember listening to a Stephen Hawking interview (and, don't you love his computerized voice?) in which he talked about the wonderful potential of emptiness.  I love that time when I look at a canvas and it can still be anything.  Well, in my mind it can.  And, within the limits of my abilities it can.  You see, I start to apply limits.

And once I apply something real, paint, crinkly paper, charcoal for a sketch, then some of that potential is gone.  Now there is a direction, a goal, and a limitation.

Perhaps that's why I love babies, and puppies, and kittens, and piglets. . . . well all things infant.  All that wonderful, amazing potential is there in its raw form.

But, to create anything, I must apply the paint, sketch with the charcoal, glue on the paper.  I must choose.  I must evaluate and judge.

Somehow in the bigger world, beyond art, that has gotten a bad rap.  "Don't judge me."   Well, judge we must.  In everything.  Do I like this or that?  Do I choose to sleep in or go to the gym?  Even do I want to be around this person or not.

As a human I cannot absorb or be or do all things.  So, I must judge and I must choose.  And, having done that, I begin to create.  But, I also limit that amazing potential.   Such is life.