5 ideas
Martin argues that beauty is a response in the mind rather than a property of the thing seen. Her test case is the rose: when a beautiful rose dies, beauty does not die, because it was never really in the rose. A painting therefore works by occasioning a remembered inner state, not by depicting or containing one.
Martin treats inspiration as something that cannot be willed, planned or produced by effort. It comes only when the mind is empty of ego, ambition and worry, so the artist's real work is clearing obstacles and waiting. Pride, fear and the wish for success are what block it.
Martin asks the viewer to sit before a painting with nothing in mind and wait for their own response, rather than inspecting it for subject, technique or meaning. On this view, the finished work is completed by the viewer's response, and understanding is felt rather than analyzed. A painting that seems empty at first glance is one whose content only appears with time.
Martin holds that an artist should expect to fail most of the time and that defeat is not a sign of lost talent. Repeated failure clears away pride and the false belief that one controls the work. That humility is the condition under which inspiration can return.
Martin said her grid came to her while she was thinking about the innocence of trees, not from any geometric or formal program. She presented the grid as a vehicle for abstract states such as innocence and happiness rather than as a system. In 1967 she stopped painting, left New York, traveled, and settled on a remote New Mexico mesa, and she did not resume painting until the early 1970s. She treated waiting and withdrawal as part of the work itself.