Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, August 20, 1962

My most disturbing problem in these later years is that I have too many ideas — so many have piled up and more keep crowding my mind that I find myself in the following dilemma — which to concentrate on? I cannot possibly live long enough to do them all. They all seem equally important — so the upshot is I wander among them as in a labyrinth, the key to which has been lost — and so little is accomplished — Is this really fecundity? Or is it a sort of glorified kind of daydreaming —? With it comes a frustration or guilt that sometimes becomes almost unknowable — So little time. I tell myself — when what is needed is to make some real decisions —

And even when I can make up my mind to work on one definite picture, I made false moves, which have to be eliminated — So it was with the “August Sun and Spider-web tree” — I want a sun that is hot and blazing, overpowering, filling a hot burning sky, one that seems as if it would annihilate all things on a parched earth — But what I create is a sun that turns out to look like a rosette of some sort — which means that much experimenting and research must be done before I can achieve my aim —

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, August 20, 1962