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Reflections 1

A wonderous thing happened recently; on the eve of June 24th, I completed the first art piece I have done in what feels like a century. No overthinking. I just picked up the brush and began-I released the chaotic stream of emotions I had been carrying out into the universe. Or rather, I channeled a portion of it STRAIGHT into my artwork.

Part of my self-prescribed therapy is to paint my own personal Wizard-of-Oz-sized tornado of emotions. I’m not allowed to worry about whether or not it’s good or perfect. There are no critiques and the inner critic which judges me so harshly is forced into a state of silence. I feel; I create; I release; and hopefully, in the process of it all, I heal. Our souls are all altered by experiences in life, like the way water moves stone and earth over time. Happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, grief (the list goes on), all flow over us and through us, shaping who we are. My hope is to capture fragments of what has molded me-reflections of the twists, turns, and rocky terrain I’ve come across on my journey and the emotions that have emerged from those joys and hardships-and tuck them tenderly within my work.

For the last several months, I have been examining grief; how time alters it, changing it’s shape and appearance while the essence of what it is remains the same. What does it mean to grieve? Is nostalgia and longing a form of grief, as well? Is it possible that grief is more than devastation; and if so, do we always carry a form of grief within us?

“Grief changes shape, but it never ends.” -Keanu Reeves

Recently a friend shared this quote. Whether I came across it serendipitously or by fate or perhaps an act of God, I don’t know; but it caught me off guard. I felt as if the universe looked down upon me with a loving-all-knowing-gaze, then nodded and said, “You are headed in the right direction.” It wasn’t that the quote was complex and long, or full of poetry. In actuality it’s simple and to the point. It spoke to me because it holds a resounding truth; and I came across it at just the right moment.

The last year has held a lot of transitions for me personally. While they certainly weren’t the first or last, they were some of the most difficult. Grief and heartache has taught me what true grace and resilience is. I will cherish the lessons I’ve learned through those experiences, no matter how challenging they may have been.

Regarding this work specifically: I imagine grief creating ambiguous layers within me, permeating each of my cells individually. I envision the colors of my grief changing with the intensity and frequency of memory, like a built in mood ring. I’m tricked into believing there is no escape, that even the air I breathe is consumed; but the vines which entrap me really do not hold me. Instead they gently surround me. I’m able to break free at any moment. At times grief can be hard, ugly, haunting, or rigid; but here, I remember the beauty. To know grief is to know loss which means I had something worthy of missing and worth treasuring. To me, that is a true blessing.

A beautiful thing about art is that it can be a conduit for emotion and experiences from the artist to the viewer; and while I have told you what I’ve poured into this work, you as the spectator and reader may look at it and see something else entirely. That is ok too. Art has the ability to speak to us in different ways. Once the artist gives it life, the work itself communicates to the audience as it sees fit.

I’ve been struggling with a title for this piece. Somehow a piece never feels complete until it has a name. Eventually it will come to me. I keep leaning towards a name that seems vague or generic. My intention is for the viewer to assign the emotion that the work provokes for themselves. While this work for me was an exploration of grief and the realization that we are not trapped but rather experiencing life, you the viewer may have an entirely different emotional reaction. I want to leave room for that.

Before I sign off, I want to explain one last thing-an insight into the artist brain. I know I refer to this figure as if it is me specifically. It isn’t necessarily. I don’t want you to mistake it for a self-portrait attempt. It is an exploration of emotion which I am experiencing. Therefore, while this figure looks nothing like myself, it does encapsulate an internal element of me. Perhaps you understood that already, but I wanted to clarify just in case it seemed confusing. After all, you all aren’t in my head. Thank God for that too. There’s enough craziness with just me rolling around up in here. 😉

Until next time, my friends.

Moving Forward

In less than one month, I will be 42 years old. The number flows easily off my tongue. I don’t mind turning 42; in fact, I feel lucky. I hold gratitude for every moment and year I am gifted. I am, however, aware that I am approximately halfway through my life-give or take a few years (hopefully give). “Half-way through my life…” acknowledging that brings my choices, values, and actions into perspective and I fall into a perpetual state of self-reflection. I can’t help but ask myself, how do I want to spend the second half of my life?

Over the last year and a half, we have all been called to attention and propelled into isolation as the world was taken by COVID19. We’ve questioned what we value, how we spend our time, what relationships are important, and what we need to survive. Every tribe and nation on mother earth felt the fragility of the human race deep within their bones; it echoed across cities and towns, no stone was left unturned. Loved ones were lost and strangers brought together, bonded through grief and fear. And while it may not be over yet, hope is on the horizon.

This post isn’t about COVID19 though. This is about me and how I choose to move forward. Once again, how do I want to spend the second half of my life?

I want to let go. I don’t want to be bound by the limitations I put on myself or what the world expects of me. I’ve spent a lifetime making myself small; and for what? My spirit is tall and ready to stretch beyond the boundaries I’ve laid down for myself-boundaries I constructed out of low self-esteem and fear. I’ve suffered my entire life from imposter syndrome; and I’m a habitual people pleaser. That, my friends, is a dangerous combination and one that will keep you in a self-destructive loop for a long time. Also, due to my empathic nature and high sensitivity, I tend to attract a lot of narcissist. (**Insert affirming head nod and raised eye brows here.**) Anyone who has ever dealt with a narcissist knows, they suck the life out of you.

I want to stop, daily, and simply breathe. I fill every moment up so easily, giving myself away to the point of nothing being left. I collapse. I fail. I shatter and slip through my life like sand, struggling to find where the identity that others have given me ends and who I am separate from those roles begins. We are taught to give ourselves 100%, but there is no balance in that. I don’t want that for my children. I preach to them about balance, self-care, self-love, and yet fail to fulfill those things for myself. We learn more from example than from words so… I want to be the example not just the words.

In the last several years I’ve focused my art on botanicals and how they interact with the figure to help tell a story. I’ve been frozen though, questioning whether the work was good, or too sweet, too perfect-wondering about my ability to create anything worthwhile. Art is meant to be raw, challenging and provocative. I’ve managed to produce a few pieces but not many made it past the initial sketches, if they even made it that far. Nothing kills the ability to create like paralyzing fear and self-doubt.

I want to breathe life back into the creative nature that drives me. I am a storyteller. When I forget that, I loose touch with a part of my soul. A few Saturdays ago, in an effort to reclaim my creative voice, I began photographing flowers outside of the Saint Louis Art Museum early in the morning before my shift, thinking that I could use them for inspiration-paying attention to the folds, colors and compositions. I think the organic flow found in nature is poetry.

Today, while looking through those photos, I realized something.

In 2009, I lost my mother to breast cancer. A few weeks ago I drove by our childhood home, discovering that the beautiful gardens my mom had left behind were now gone and the land was in severe neglect. My heart was crushed. I hadn’t expected anyone to keep them as she had kept them. After all, she had somehow turned our backyard in the middle of town into a secret garden. But now, nothing remains of the gardens she left behind. I hadn’t expected the house to look as though she had never been there. An ache settled into my heart I hadn’t foreseen. I wasn’t simply grappling with grief. I was also confronted with this feeling, this knowledge, that every bit of magic that existed in those gardens seemed to have left with her. I had expected it to remain there, waiting for me.

I began taking pictures of botanicals a week after that. I think in an effort to heal the sadness I have in my soul, I tried to subconsciously recreated and capture the magic of those gardens through the lens of my camera. My first revelation: the artwork I had been producing, the artwork that focused on botanicals and nature and how they interact with the figure, I began after she passed and we sold her house. Those works are full of whimsy and magic and I believe it’s because I’ve been trying to capture the magic found within her gardens. Each figure, contains a part of my soul. They don’t need to look like me in order to possess an aspect of myself. They each have a name, a character, a story in which is all their own. But in the end, they come from a part of myself and are therefore a reflection of who I am. Each figure is surrounded and captured within nature, within a garden. I have been chasing my mothers gardens through my artwork for a few years, and hadn’t even realized it.

The magic that I had felt had left with her when I stood outside the decaying fence line around her old home, didn’t leave at all. It evolved. I carried it with me, gently wrapped within the muscular and spiritual fibers of my heart. We all carry pieces of it-my sisters, my children, anyone who loved her. It’s okay that the physical gardens are gone. They were never meant to remain. The magic they held still thrives and will be passed down through photos and memories and the art in which I create.

What does this have to do with moving forward? We can’t move forward without acknowledging and processing the pain in our past. We become stuck in our crumbling reality. Moving forward, I want to honor my mothers legacy. I want to release the magic she instilled within me. I want to capture the magic of the gardens. They continue to grow, thriving in who I am and through my work, I want to release them into the world. There is nothing too precious or too sweet about that. It’s real and honest, full of joy and sorrow.

I will end this here since this post is already longer than I’ve intended, but I feel as if new beginnings usually are. And this, indeed, is a new beginning. I’ve uploaded/shared some older works on this site. This blog isn’t going to be a perfect collection of writings, only full of tutorials or whatever else you think an artists blog should be about. This is a reflection of myself. My goal is that it’s honest and real-showing my work, creative process, who I am, and what inspires me. I want to capture the magic that I know still pulsates in this world. I will share my journey with you, as I learn to carve out time for myself, slowing down to see the beauty in the small spaces and quiet moments. This is my life, created and curated through images, and writings.

Welcome to my garden. It isn’t perfect. It’s still growing.

Learning To Be Free

A few months ago, I purchased two large Newsprint pads. They were on sale at our local art supply store, ArtMart, for only $2 a piece. My inner art-supply-junkie couldn’t resist. They were new, incomplete, and ready for ideas. It didn’t matter that in college I didn’t care for Newsprint. Yes, it had served it’s purpose. We used them for charcoal sketches, figure studies, and preliminary work. They are a wonderful inexpensive tool to work on. But the rough textured paper mixed with the charcoal made my teeth hurt like nails on a chalkboard. I know, it’s weird. I can’t explain it. It’s a sensory thing.

Hey, we all have our quirks, right?

But these newsprint pads, though they said “rough”, felt smooth. Instantly, I wanted to write on them. All of my college student quirks fell away and I was consumed with a desperate need to buy 20 of these Newsprint pads! I ran my hands across their crisp pages; I could hear angels singing their praises! And… THEY WERE ONLY $2 A PIECE! What a deal! But, I settled for 2; basically, reason won and kept the art-supply-junkie happy but under control.

Later that night, I picked up the first one and began filling it. A few months later and I am still working in that same pad, …and I’m glad that I don’t have the pressure of 20 pads of newsprint sitting in the corner begging to be filled. I am quite sure that I would have cracked under the pressure of 20 pads of Newsprint silently judging me.

So what does any of this have to do with, “LEARNING TO BE FREE,” which is the title of this post?

Well, patience dear one. Here it is…

There is a magic that happens when you aren’t worried about what you are creating, why you are creating it, and when the money you spent on supplies isn’t a factor. It’s a magical place of freedom and creation where your imagination can roam.

Trust me when I say, you need this. And an inexpensive pad of Newsprint paper is a wonderful place to start.

I use the newsprint pad and a sharpie marker to do preliminary work, using it like an over-sized sketchbook, working across the entire page or dividing it up into large sections. I love working with a sharpie marker because I can work fast and move over lines multiple times. The sharpie marker keeps me from being precious with it AND that allows me to capture the chaos that’s flooding my mind, getting it all onto the page.

It gives you the freedom to scribble, work big, make grand gestures! ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING YOU WANT. It is for your ideas and explorations. You are an artist setting out to sea and the pages are your ocean. You are your only limitation.

Working with inexpensive materials, allows me to make mistakes and mistakes are what it takes to make something worth while. You need to push around an idea – working it one way and then another until it’s fully formed.

Think of it like kneading bread. You have to knead most breads or they won’t rise. Well, creating is similar. You need to move your ideas around, squish them, work them back and forth in order for them to fully develop into something utterly delicious. Think of the newsprint pad as your counter top and the marker as the rolling pin, both ready for you to work your ideas out on. They don’t have to be perfect. In fact, there is so much beauty found in imperfections. Don’t be scared of them. Just create. Create and be free.

I know. It’s harder than it sounds.

Trust me though, once you begin, you won’t want to go back. Allow your intuition, creative juices, inner genius, or whatever muse inspires you to guide you. Silence your inner critic, that nagging voice that tends to take over in your mind. Let loose. Be free.

And above all, CREATE, CREATE CREATE!

To Be An Artist

Inside, it twists and contorts, fighting its way out, begging for a voice. It requires courage. Endurance. To Be an artist is something that is embedded inside the soul. It’s different than just making art; being an artist is a way of existence and it alters the way you see the world.

Your eyes see what is there but more importantly, what isn’t visible, and often what doesn’t exist at all. Living in a dream, an artist exists in two worlds, reality and everything else. Everything else is where dreams, metaphorical realities, imagination, stories – and the list goes on – all pulsate with life. It’s a joyous broken world, mirroring aspects of our own, yet… different. It speaks truth. It can show things as they truly are, not just how we physically see them. It’s not limited. Or at least it doesn’t have to be.

To be an artist means being courageous enough to release those “things” welling up inside of you. Perfection is not the goal. Beauty is irrelevant. And often those “mistakes”, those little imperfections or ugly bumps along the way are the most interesting part. Perhaps that is a spiritual lesson as well… there is beauty in the imperfections, and since we are ALL imperfect, there is beauty in all of us.

My daughters are all artists. It’s second nature to them. Take away their drawing pencils, etc and it’s as if you are cutting off a limb, or crippling them in some way. They have artist souls. For them, being an artist is just who they are.

Others have to work a little harder. It hasn’t been nurtured, cultured, or understood. But it does exist inside, buried deep. Creativity is human therefore to be human is to be creative. Be free to express that creativity. Be an artist, for good or for bad. Have fun. Release. Tell your story. And be an artist, if you dare.

Creative Truths

I’ve been thinking about the origins of creativity, what it means to be creative, and how it manifests. You will see these questions come up often in my blog and works. I always tend to circle back to them, intrigued by why we create what we create and where it all begins.

Often, I am asked how I come up with ideas? My current projects, “Queen Bees” and “Wild Things” have kept me busy, twisting simplicity into something different, perhaps slightly surreal, and always a little magical, filled with dreams and oddities. My ideas are a constant flow of word and image associations, twisted a little more as I move from one thing to the next. I imagine the elements I incorporate into a drawing or painting like a symphony, working separately yet together to compose one large emotional score. In an age where symbolism can seem outdated or passe, I do it anyway. It’s not to be rebellious or to reinvent symbolism in some new or profound way. I do it because I do. It’s the way I think and the way I create – the way I work a narrative into each piece I do. To some, I’m sure it’s nothing special… and that is fine. But for me, they are visual narratives ,attempting to delight… and right there is where my creative heart pulsates with joy.

Be true to your soul. Learn and grow, yes. Experiment with different mediums, styles, and methods. Develop an understanding of all art forms, even the ones you aren’t particularly fond of. But in the end, create art that expresses your voice and excites you. There is a VERY REAL pressure as an artist to only create things that will make you money. After all, commerce moves our culture, our world. Don’t let it define your art. It is the quickest way to stifle all creativity. I know from experience. Then, trying to move past it can be a challenge. I’m not saying that after creation, you can’t make money with it. If you can, FANTASTIC. But don’t create with that sole purpose.

Draw inspiration from EVERYTHING. I’ll post more on this later, including where I draw inspiration from, which here is a sneak preview – everywhere. You would be surprised what can inspire you if you are willing to open yourself up.

I know authenticity has become a “buzz” word. Even so, the truth of the word remains the same. There is only one you. Allow your authenticity to manifest in your work. Your individual soul expression will shine through.