Artist and Analyst

ALTHOUGH THE TIMES HAVE BEEN infrequent, because she doesn't like to work with an audience, there have been occasions when I've had the chance to observe my wife in her studio in the process of painting. The thought that invariably crosses my mind is how she ever came to be able to do this thing which to me seems beyond comprehension, even though I'm watching it occur and can see the technical process going on in front of my eyes. I know her art background; I know with whom she studied; in which countries she was trained; what painters most influenced her, and even many of the basic principles that guide her; but the sum total of this knowledge, except at some superficial level, does not seem to account for what emerges as she works, either in the moment to moment process or at any phase or stage along the way. She also teaches painting, and many of her students go on to have shows of their own—but except for rare instances her students' work looks nothing like hers. What, then, can be said about the interface between what a painter does and teaches with regard to the role of what was initially taught during training?

It might be argued that the analyst-painter analogy is too thinly drawn to be usable because the analyst's efforts are directed by a continually evolving interchange with another human being, while the painter is presumably directed by his or her internal vision in a one-way transformation of some internal or external reality. That is, unlike the analyst, the painter's creativity is determined largely by the blend of raw talent with what has been taught, so that the original learning has been "forgotten" as a set of rules to simply be applied while painting; what has been learned is digested into the painter's personal identity and emerges as a disciplined element of self expression that is inseparable from the creative act itself. In