Lady Orpen

In 1917, during a particularly low period in the fortunes of
Winston Churchill, he decided to do something he had been
intending to do for years. He purchased a box of oil paints. He
picked a nice day, set himself up in his garden, and squeezed
out. Then he sat frozen in place for two hours, unable to make
a stroke. "My hand," he said, "seemed arrested by a silent
veto." With the day waning and in the mood to give up, he
heard, on the other side of the hedge, the arrival of a car. It
was the painter wife of his friend Sir William Orpen. According
to Churchill, Lady Orpen swept into the garden and saw the
blank canvas and the plight he was in. She grabbed the brush
out of his hand, went for the blue, and within a minute had the
sky on the canvas. The spell had been broken. Churchill then
and there decided that the thing needed in painting was the
same thing that he had applied in politics--audacity.

Churchill was right on. Stuff like planning and research and
reference and inspiration and time and the right mood aren't
worth a farthing compared to audacity. It's through audacity
that you commit and begin, and it's through audacity that you
find out what you are doing wrong and it's through audacity
that you correct it. Audacity allows you to be at ease with
your inadequacy, safe in the knowledge that while things may
not be perfect, they are at least under way.

All my best, Phil

PS: "We must not be too ambitious. We cannot aspire to
masterpieces. We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a
paint box. And, for this, Audacity is the ticket." (Winston
Churchill--from "Painting as a Pastime")

Esoterica: I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
I'd appreciate if you didn't tell anybody. Many, many times
I've been the recipient of Lady Orpen's audacity. Any time of
day or night this beautiful, ghostly woman may roll up to my
studio in her chauffeur-driven Silver Ghost Rolls. On a regular
basis she helps herself to my brush. It's a hot little thing
between her and me. I need her. I love her. "Boldness has
genius, power and magic. Engage, and the mind grows heated.
Begin, and the work will be completed." (Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe