“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(My pendulum related the symptoms to my decision to paint an oil from a small pen-and-ink sketch I had made in 1969. I pulled the little sketch, which was a free interpretation of what I considered to be a man facing himself, embodying certain distortions of face and form from my files recently and decided to paint it. For a surface I chose a cardboard canvas-covered panel made by one of the well-known artist’s manufacturers. I don’t often use such panels, usually thinking them not permanent enough; I almost always prefer Masonite, etc.

You did not encounter the difficulty in sketch form, you see—only when the idea of permanency in a painting came into issue. The remark I made about the inner encounter will help you reconcile the two positions.

You can accept completely abstract work, and do it well, though you would not be satisfied with it for a great time. (True.) This sort of a painting however, that uses figures or objects, but not in representational form, bothers you, while you are strongly attracted in sketches of the same nature. There is no dilemma: you allow the intuitive self spontaneous expression in those sketches. It is only when you transpose the same ideas onto painting and a more permanent form that you become uneasy.

Give us a moment here. (Pause.) You trust the extrerior sense of order you perceive in objects, and when they are distorted this brings a sense of alarm—again, in paintings, not sketches.

Intuitively you knew better, and (but?) when painting was concerned—your career, you did not allow yourself the freedom. In sketches which were fun, and to you not permanent, you permitted the spontaneity.