Why Do We Paint?

As someone who has drawn or painted since I can remember, and has been obsessed with oil paints since I was nine, I’m constantly asking this question. The answer, I find, usually tends to change.

When I was little, I painted for curiosity and discovery. Seeing colors on paper or canvas delighted me. I loved seeing my work improve, testing my skills with new, more challenging subjects. At the time, I maintly painted from photographs or images in magazine I found.

At some point, painting became an identity for me — my MySpace handle proudly boasted “/shewillpaint,” and I even scrawled those words in sparkly fabric paint on a pair of flared, painted jeans in eight grade. Then, I painted because it was just something I did. Some kids played volleyball or did gymnastics; I painted.

It just made me feel good to put on some Matchbox 20, Janis Joplin or Santana and disappear into a canvas for hours. The work wasn’t very deep, but I liked it. And people said I was good, which I liked.

Then, I auditioned for an all-arts residency high school program, South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities (or Gov School, for us govies.) It was designed to give students an elevated studio or master class experience of their chosen art where suddenly painting became a four-hour class for me along with classes like sculpture, metals, printmaking and ceramics.

By then, painting became about proving I was still good, even among all of the other talented artists who made up my cohort. I wanted to stand out, and I devoted myself to honing my craft. As I dove deeper into the zeitgeist of Art, painting shifted for me.

As I was finding my voice and learning about the role of the Unconscious in art history, painting became a vehicle. I painted to channel. I poured paint as a way to embrace process and the hidden plan of the unknown. The paintings were purely abstract but had a tangible substance, like giving form to thought.

I didn’t need my paintings to look traditoinally “good” or accurate; it wasn’t about that. The work became a path of information, a record of choreography decoded by automatic process. Anyone could do it if they followed my steps, and it still might come out wth a surprise. I felt connected to Art on a whole other level and painting refected that in me.

Then I went to art school. I chose Tyler in Philly for its Painting program, and again my work shifted. Painting once again became about proving I could paint. Having lived the majority of my life in the South, I was bombarded with new sights, smells, feelings and ideas. I thoguht my work would reflect all of this, but instead it became a safe place to recede into painting what I knew.

Instead of trying out new things, I returned to painting representational images. I found myself painting to keep up. If there’s such a thing as “keeping up with the Joneses” of art school, I was doing it. Sometimes, it felt grudging even. I even briefly switched my major to Fibers & Materials where I developed a range of handmade costumes to illustrate my friends’ highest selves (think, Cirque du Soleil meets animals, tulle and felt.) At times I hated painting, I resented the painters and thought I’d never paint again.

Then, right before senior year, it switched again for me and I went back to Painting, started making large paintings of abstract spaces with pre-mixed colors, and painting photos I took of my friends costumed in the “clothes” I’d made them (really they were more like wearble sculptures.)

Feeling a massive transition approaching, I found myself having recurring dreams where Philly’s streets were channels of water — like Venice — and rows of Fishtown homes sailed by in city-block chunks on wooden boats. Stop signs floated eerily in the water like buoys. I began painting these scenes in 6-foot by 5-foot canvases.

It felt like a way to process the feelings that found their way into my dreams and, once again, painting felt like home. Maybe because once again, I was exploring the unconscious. I made some of my best works that semester as I blended photos I took on my daily drive to school with a dreamlike, expressive style of painting.

Then, I graduated. Painting became about maintaining. It no longer felt magical; it felt hard. I painted laboriously to hold onto an identity I worried would slip away if I ever stopped. Sometimes, I painted to remind people I could. I’m not sure why it mattered so much that people knew — maybe it gave me some sense of existing in the real world, outside of myself.

Whenever my inner critic would get loud and say “you’ll never make it as an artist, why not give up now…,” I painted to prove it wrong. Sometimes, I painted to make money, to fund a trip, often underselling myself. Sometimes, I painted out of the need to simply finish an idea for a collection I had, but my heart wasn’t always in it.

I had two galleries representing my work at the time, but the paintings I made for them felt the same as finishing one bottle of shampoo before starting another. It had become some sort formulaic routine.

At times, I’ve painted because “I should.” Like, I’d have an idea that I thought would make a “good painting,” and I painted it to prove I was a “good painter.”

Are you seeing a pattern? I am. A huge reason I’ve painted in the past has been to prove something — either to myself or others. Like, “Look at me, I’m a good painter…aren’t I?” As a result, alot of that work lacks depth of exploration or curiosity.

Then in August of 2024, I got pregnant. Suddenly, all i wanted to do was paint. I joked that I had senioritis because I didn’t want to do any actual work for my writing and editorial job; all I wanted to do was sit outside in my back-patio studio and putz around with my oil paints. It felt so soothing to me, it slowed me down which felt right because I was already experiencing a slow-down of sorts.

I actually finished three paintings I had begun in 2021 and these peices became some of my favorites I’ve painted since college. To me, they felt richer and deeper than other works I’d done in the last couple of years because more than anything, they embodied the delicious joy I felt while making them. In some ways, maybe I was still trying to prove something to myself.

“Look, I’m still an artist first,” they said, “even though I’m becoming a mother.”

I was still very aware that no matter how good it felt to make those paintings, I was still trying to make passably “good” paintings, “impressive” paintings.

Today, 12 weeks postpartum, I paint to take a break.

I paint to reconnect to myself as Tanya, as Taty, mom or not. I paint because it is essential, and I believe this act of simple arting has played a huge role in helping me avoid the postpartum depression which hit so many of my friends.

Painting has once again become a channel, a way to document life all around me. Though, I’ve come to realize that painting at every stage in my life communicated something, a mirror of myself or the world around me.

When I was in my 20s, I painted images that dove into dark corners of the female psyche. In 2020, painting expressed my shadow side — the part of myself I was too embarrassed to show any other way but which needed to come out and scream. Now, I paint small moments from my day.

I take photos on my mommy stroller walks and I paint them because it feels good to melt into my studio when I have a half hour. Lately, I’ve been able to bring the baby’s lounge chair outside and my son will sit with me, watching me paint. Sometimes he gives me an hour before he starts yelling at me.

I think something about having my son shifted the need to prove myself. Painting has become once again, a necessity for my soul. Once I stopped painting to prove something, I began to enjoy it a whole lot more.I don’t know what painting will bring in the future, but I know that for now, I paint to stay sane.

I’m ready to approach painting from a place of curiosity, play, study and the desire to share it with others (paint with me!) rather than from a place of expectation, rigid standards and fear.