posted by Paige on Uncategorized

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September, 2012
Tokyo, Japan

Kneeling on the floor blindfolded, I reach out with my right hand, searching. I have a sense of the general area of what I’m looking for, but can’t quite locate it. My hands grope in the air, sightlessly seeking.

And then a finger touches the smooth wetness of paint glopped onto my palette. Ah!

I smile, dipping the fingertips of both hands into the unseen colors, savoring their coolness. I lift my fingers, the paint clinging to them, and reach each hand out to either side of me, putting them down onto the rough white canvases waiting there.

I can picture the blank surfaces in my mind’s eye, imagine them being smeared with the reds, yellows and oranges coming off my fingertips, but not knowing for sure what they look like is exhilarating.

The beat of the music picks up and with it I dip my hands to the palette again, this time mixing the colors by gently rubbing my fingertips together. I put my hands to the canvases, moving with the beat, letting the music inform my every gesture, letting it become part of the painting.

Leaning again to the palette, I pull up more paint, scooping with my fingers and delighting in the sensation. Again I reach down to the canvases, body rocking, hands echoing the movement of the rest of my body, my fingers the very focus of the dance.

What’s happening underneath them? My only perception of the paint is through the touch of my skin, and in the unfamiliarity of this way of knowing I’m swept into a joyous reverie. I don’t know exactly what’s happening and I love it; I can’t see what kind of marks I’m making and I don’t care. I only want it to keep going, only want to keep living this feeling, keep experiencing this interlocked dance of body, paint and music.

The sensitive tips of my fingers are starting to become slightly bothered by the uniform bumps of the canvas, their subtle roughness more and more apparent as I continue to touch them.

Undeterred, I move my hands to the paint again, this time meeting my palms in front of my chest, feeling the paint warm with my touch. I wonder what color they are now, my hands. The urge to peek at what’s happening suddenly becomes nearly too much to resist, and yet I know that looking would somehow break the spell of this moment, and so hold back.

When a break comes in the music I  find a natural pause too and lift my forearm to my face, pushing the blindfold from my eyes. To my right and to my left lie two paint be-smudged canvases, lively and glowing. Their frenetic energy pops out at me, a visual representation of the joyous wave I just rode.

They’re just finger paintings, yet caught in them is something else too. Dynamism, motion, energy. The pure bodily enjoyment of movement and touch.

Tags: body, mind, spirit, the 500-word project