Nietzche's 'amor fati' & painting

I frequently take my questions and ideas for long walks. Today Heidegger and I hiked the mountain path from the studio up into the forest behind our home. Accompanying me were thoughts partnered in dialogue. The first dialogue partner is from Enrique Martinez Celaya's latest blog about PAINTING & STRUCTURE . He invites us to view painting as a "state of thought". In doing this he posits that the "underlying supports that give shape to the state of thought will soon become clear." Enrique defines thought as "the entire force of spirit: reason, emotion, intuition." I am abducted by this idea and find a dialogue emerging in the studio as I sit with my current painting.

My current immersion in reading about Nietzche's teaching of 'amor fati' is challenging and affirming. I find it is giving me a grounding in my work, answering unformed yet intuited questions that I have about the purpose of my painting. Do my paintings reveal the state of my current thought? I realize I engage in thought exploration. It is part of my vocation as an artist. I am always asking how does this inform what I paint? How I paint?

From WORDS IN BLOOD,LIKE FLOWERS:
"What the artist realizes in art -this is the erotic valence-is the external in (herself), "the eternal joy of becoming."
"...-one realizes what Nietzsche calls the "joy encompassing joy in destruction"-a joy with nothing to do with violence, a cruelty that is also a rueful name for sadness. Such a tragic joy is the affirmation of life because no affirmation, and no love, can choose any part, such as life and not also death, or ecstasy and not also longing, disappointment, and consumate sadness, or joy and not also suffering, or being and not much rather and also becoming."
"...It is the 'heroic' spirits who say Yes to themselves in tragic cruelty; they are hard enough to experience suffering as a 'joy'."
"Thus for Nietzsche, Those imposing artists who let a 'harmony' sound forth from every conflict are those who bestow upon things their own power and self-redemption: they express their innermost experience in the symbolism of every work of art they produce-their creativity is gratitude for their existence."

Creativity as gratitude for existence.

Painting as a state of thought.

The "genius of of the heart who makes everything loud and self- satisfied fall silent and teaches it to listen..."