The black columns

It was solved. But once again, the key thing in the solution was not the work, the actual painting, the trying different things. It was the shimmering sense of black and white, which was quite different from anything I had tried before, which I saw only after immense effort.
It was the initial vision, the initial sense of color-feeling, which was the essential element. The hours of sitting intensely in the bath, eyes tightly shut, waiting until an authentic living vision entered my mind, was fifty times more work, emotionally, than the actual work of painting, trying, mockup, etc. That is where the value of the whole thing came from.
At every step one takes, in an unfolding work, it is always the process of knowing the emotional substance — and then getting it clear enough, so that it exists alive, in one’s mind, and can be followed and materialized — which is so hard. This is the hard work, this is where the thing begins, and this is where its success or failure is determined.

#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/14 Deep feeling#