Processing

A great deal of red came out a few afternoons ago, along with rather vigorous black charcoaled lines. Just before I dove into the paint, I complained to my husband about…everything. The reality and monotony of being at home with the kids, with no real end in sight, got to me on Friday. I know many can relate to being housed in their four walls with the same individuals, how you hold your deep love for them along with wanting to pull your hair out that they. are. all. so. close.

Art to the rescue, per usual. It is not a given that art-making will release anything, but I can feel the click over from a conscious place where my mind is whirring to a place not quite of the earth, like I am connected to a tap or something. Sometimes I only feel the otherness for a few minutes, other times I can dance in its energy for hours. The other day it was just a few minutes, the anger and tears pouring out, but that force, that connection to creative source, was electrifying and one of the places I love being best. I’m a Capricorn Sun in the 12th house, so of course I enjoy not really being fully on the earth. This source is what keeps me coming back, to paint and create and be down in my cold basement. Sometimes I look around at my paintings and wonder why I do this. I think about business and marketing and trying to sell and I feel overwhelm. Then I put up the canvas, squeeze out the paint, pick up the foam brush and just dive in. And when that click happens, when I go from contrived movements and marks to something not quite of me, like something else is taking over the brush, the paint color choices, the motions of my arm I know it will all be ok. Of course painting is what I am supposed to do. It feels so simple and life feels blissful. Even on the days that I don’t feel like being a mother. It helps me return to myself, to remember that I am so much greater than what my narrow mind construes for me, that the present moment is all there is, that I love my kids….

I so enjoy the freshness of these pieces. The energy and emotion behind them. Keeping this openness in a piece is one of the things that I strive for all of the time and also what I am most interested in. How can I keep a painting loose, open, full of feeling as it moves along? In fact, I could just replace the word “painting” with “life in that question and that would work too.

Ohh, the magic of creativity. It knocks me over all of the time.

I’m doing another FB Live on Friday, May 22nd at 4pm Mountain Time. I am cooking up something new and am going to announce it there…so join me. Make art, chat with me, watch.

Tell me, what makes you come alive and connect to source?

A little later that day... This beautiful, Andy Goldsworthy-like sculpture was waiting for my husband and I when we went upstairs. These two little people designed and executed it together as an apology for getting into some rather destructive, mischievous behavior on Friday. The sweetness of it.

Also, thinking about it more, going from monkey mind to expansiveness is not about entering something outside of ourselves. Rather it is getting to the deepest parts of ourselves, the part that is connected to something greater, to the creativity that is part of our inherent world. I didn’t want to convey that this source is something separate from us….rather I really believe it is the essence of us. And activities that allow us to feel this depth are not only energy-giving but provide a perspective that is greater than our external, ego self.