EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

God help me!

Failure can scare anyone, let alone artists like Paul Klee who sometimes imagine that they are performing at such a high level that the consequences of a bad showing will be free fall. Yet, like tightrope walkers, they have practiced their craft endlessly to a point at which the most profound part of their mind is in full control of their bodily motions, especially over the pressure on their brush, the twist of the wrist, the grand gesture. The ego nearer the surface of their psyche stands by, unwanted and ignored. The prospect of performance may still frighten artists but they go on auto-pilot when doing what they do best. Fear vanishes. They let the wisdom inside them or the gods take over. Listen to Philippe Petit, the French nut who stunned the world by walking from the top of one World Trade Center tower to another on little more than a wire. 

"The gods in my feet. They are so knowledgeable, so talented. If they allowed the soles of the feet to land flat on the cable, they would color the walk with inelegance and danger. Instead they ask the sole - and the sole complies - to land delicately on the steel, toes first. And to slide down an alert sole, not a dormant one, so that the sole feels the cable is not a flat surface but a curve. And the sole asks its flesh to find as much of the cylindrical cable as possible, to embrace it, to hang on to it. It is a safe embrace.

"The gods in my feet know how not to hit the cable, how not to make it move when each foot lands. How do they know? They worked that out during their endless days of rehearsals. They know the slightest addition to the vivacious dance of the catenary curve would mean peril for the wire walker. They ask the feet to land on the steel rope in such a way that the impact of each step absorbs the swaying of the cable, its vertical oscillations, and its twisting along the axis of the walk; the feet answer by being gentle and understanding, by conversing with the wire-rope, by enticing the huffing and puffing living entity above them to let go of his rage to control. Wirewalker, trust your feet! Let them lead you; they know the way.”¹

When an artist credits divine help, as they often do, that is what they mean.
 

1. Philippe Petit, Man on Wire (Skyhorse Publishing) 2008