Video Finger Paint

Do you remember finger painting? I do. You start with a blob of this thick paint on a piece of glossy paper, I think I chose blue a lot, and you squished it around with your fingers until you became part of the painting. It was hard to stop. I think it was the feeling of the paint starting to dry on your hands that made you realize the experience had to come to an end. In the swirls I can remember seeing so many spaces and things that appeared and then disappeared in the next swish of my fingers across the paper. Great stuff!

I still do this from time to time, no so much with finger paint, but with video images. The theme of this video came out of itself. I just started with video of a late night drive home and piled on layers until it scared me. Darkness became the theme.Then I whipped up a sound track on my audio looping program and I had my video finger painting. Watch or don't watch if you are not good with darkness. (2 Min)

"to own my darkness

allows me to begin to make peace

with the shadows that move with me"

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Now finger painting was never that dark, was it?

It was in the process of creating the clip that I decide to stick my toes into the dark side. Starting out with a night drive then adding random images and then the hands and face (me) distorted and moving close to the camera, not as scary as the latest movies on the market, but dark enough to start me thinking about my own internal darkness. That's what happens when you create things, you never know where it will take you. Once I embraced my theme the music and spoken thoughts came quickly.

I've met many people who worry about dark imagery in the arts. I have often heard people remark about macabre paintings or sculpture that "who ever did this must have been a disturbed person". From my own personal experience (not that I am one to evaluate my own sanity) I have found that creating things often puts the emotions attached to the creative process into a place where it is more manageable. In other words when I write a song all the feelings related to the song move out beyond me with the performance of the song: this might be a public performance or even when I am alone. The song gives the emotion a place to live out beyond myself. Freeing me up to be able to feel more. So spilling out a bit of darkness eases the artist's ability to move through it and life. Now the mental health of the patron of the art is a subject for another blog.

Jeff in shadow

Here is a video of a professional finger painter. If you find something you love to do go with it! http://vimeo.com/2115211
The Video might play smoother on Youtube. Here is the link to my page. http://www.youtube.com/3randomword#p/a/u/0/rwiAAySnMG4