The Channel, Waiting on a Dream

(The Channel - top, Waiting on a Dream - bottom)

I am going to post two at a time today - so as I was saying last time, I had a bit of a pause on the painting and was backed up.  Once it got released there was an explosion of many paintings and I got obsessed there for a while.  I couldn't stop painting!  I appreciated that happening because during the dry period it felt like it will never happen and then when it did I felt compelled to ride that wave.  I am reading a book right now (don't have the title on hand) about how in order to really allow creativity to flourish, people have to be ok with failure and keep going.  I think that might be the biggest challenge that I am hearing from artists and people who have a dream of expressing themselves creatively but are afraid to try. 

So I just plunged right in, disliked a few paintings, heard the critic in my mind and told it to f**k off!  And then I got into what I felt was this amazing ride where I started to forget myself and didn't realize that I was about to pee in my pants because I forgot that I had a bladder that needed emptying every so often.  And that's how I rekindled my passion with the canvas and realized that I cannot live without this ritual of expressing myself visually. 

I feel called to teach workshops and show people techniques to bring out their hidden creativity.  One day...

Somewhere

Since my last blog - over a year ago (!!) - I have painted many paintings but this one was the first that I really enjoyed and has opened my creative juices to others which I will post soon. The name of this painting is 'Somewhere'. I have taken a brake from painting since we bought our new house and have settled in and created a new work space. I needed to feel settled and safe before creating anything new. This painting I call 'somewhere' because as you see it feels like a place but not in our world. Since then I went back to my females because that is really the type of painting I most enjoy doing. My relationship with my art has grown and had it's ups and downs mainly since I began selling my work. To be able to throw on different 'hats' and create from a place of purity without thinking of business was something that challenged me for many years after choosing to do it as a profession. I got to the point where I realized that I wanted to get rid of older paintings so I can create new ones and then the passion for doing whatever needed to get done just to create more re-awakened. I love what I do so much and I have worked through any blocks I felt internally. Yes - even though I have painted since I was a child it still didn't stop me from facing blocks and self doubt or fear of truly expressing myself. But that's the joy of life, you never stop learning and growing and I realized that I learned to appreciate the rewards that come with it. So I brought myself back to that 'place' - somewhere :)