Pushing the Envelope

 Pushing the envelope came into general use …after the publication Tom Wolfe’s book about the space program – The Right Stuff, 1979:

One of the phrases that kept running through the conversation was ‘pushing the outside of the envelope’… [That] seemed to be the great challenge and satisfaction of flight test.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/push-the-envelope.html

You may not think there’s any room to associate the phrase “pushing the envelope” with going to art school, fine art or oil painting. I am here to share a couple of pretty darned good reasons why you may want to reconsider this thinking.

Confession: I have an aversion to working with any kind of power tool. What does that have to do with pushing the envelope? I am really afraid of power tools including the table saw pictured here in this paragraph. As in, I get freaked out at the thought of using them. So, I enlisted the help of my spouse to supervise me as I cut panels. I followed everything he told me to do and still had sweaty palms, shortness of breath and heart palpitations as I cut a whole bunch of 16 x 20 panels. This is my humble experience with pushing the envelope this week. And, I can’t tell you how exhilarated I felt when I was done.

So now I can continue working on my experiment with cutting and preparing hardboard panels. This is particularly important because I completely goofed and applied an acrylic grey ground to the oil primer on the ‘test’ panels two weeks ago. See my original description of this project here. Thankfully, I had some more unprimed panels and that is what I prepared this week.

Here’s another example of pushing the envelope: fine artist, Alia El-Bermani. Last week, she competed in a week long figure painting competition at the Academy of Realist Art in Boston. This competition included a live model, 10 artists in total and 3 judges.

Having enrolled in a school where I have been painting in front of my classmates (read: Support Group) for the last two years, I can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like for Alia to swoop into another setting besides her own studio to paint a live model for 8+ hours a day for 5 days. You can see the completed paintings from this competition here.

In my opinion, Alia painted a warrior. Her composition and angle make me wonder about the woman in this painting (seen in this paragraph). Her stance and the position of her head exude confidence. To me, this is a modern day, strong and powerful painting. I think the world is a better place because of powerful paintings by Alia El-Bermani. Even though she did not win the competition, she made a statement about her work and her painting and women in general, that I think will transcend time. And, she certainly pushed the envelope by participating in this rigorous competition.

Have you had an experience pushing the envelope lately? If so, I would love to hear about it. Even if it involves something as straightforward as learning to use a power tool!