“At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.” — Harold Rosenberg, art critic, who coined the term “Action Painting” in 1952 (later called Abstract Expressionism).

Standing barefoot atop a long, white strip of paper laid out on the ground, the artist holds a mop-sized paintbrush dipped in black paint. She quiets her mind, remembering everything and then letting it go, her whole life, the entirety of existence. She surrenders to the moment. She lowers brush to paper and makes her mark, a single, swift, dynamic black stroke across the length of the massive page. Finally trading the black brush for red she lashes out again, a single shriek of red amidst the vivacious black, a splatter of blood upon the earth.

Today we consider The Last Stroke, a brushstroke painting by artist Barbara Bash. (To see the rest of The Last Stroke, visit Tikkun Daily’s Art Gallery.)

A brushstroke painting is an intuitive, gestural expression in paint. Rooted in Zen Buddhism, the elements and philosophy of brushstroke painting are prevalent in many historical art movements, particularly abstract expressionism and performance art, and are relevant to Tikkun‘s quest for art that might address the suffering on earth while also moving our culture forward in a hopeful, authentic way.

Says Barbara Bash,

In the deepest sense, the calligraphic act (from the Greek : kalli — beautiful, graphos — writing ) is the beautiful “writing” or voice of a moment.The directness and immediacy of a brushstroke joins the space and vision of mind with the embodiment of form, body and tools.

Creating a brushstroke is the act of bringing heaven down to earth

I see myself as a bridge, a channel. The “Last Stroke” images were created at the end of a leadership conference. I became the visual voice for the group experience we had just shared.

Showing up fully in the moment connects us to our life and our humanity. Creating a brushstroke is one path towards that aliveness. In my experience the deeper the involvement in what we do, the more tenderness and compassion we have for the world.

Encountering this brushstroke image after the fact, having not been present during the dynamic moment of its expression onto paper, I wondered what its value was to me.

Is it simply an aesthetic relic, ornamentalist art — furniture to hang on my wall? Or are deeper reverberations inherent in a brushstroke painting that speak the story of a moment even after the moment is gone?

Says Bash:

Any expression of aliveness wakes up and enlivens the viewer. This is the importance of art in the world. It is an infusion of energy passed along from person to person.

I don’t really know what the objective point of view is here. I am letting the stroke of the moment come through. Though I am very interested in what it brings up in others, my intention and focus is to make a clear direct expression and then see how it turns out.

In my brush workshops we make a lot of strokes, witness their beauty, and then fold them up and let them go. Sometimes we choose one to take home and hang on the wall. I see the value of both letting go and holding on. Both bring an inherently spiritual act into the everyday.

My Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa (1940-1987) once said, “It is possible to make a brushstroke that expresses one’s whole life.”

To see The Last Stroke visit the Tikkun Daily Art Gallery. To see more of Barbara Bash’s work, visit Barbara’s website and her visual blog, True Nature.