no words

all that seems to be coming out of me at the moment is like this

ok i am showing some of my things

what you don't see are the broken saw blades and the swearing and the sweat and the mistakes

but i have been making silver things

and painting furiously....

fu*king it up

eeep


when i am invested in a painting - like i am of the one with Maeve -


when i want to honour the subject


do justice to the feeling and the passion behind the work


then i get all tight.


i hear the shoulds and i listen to 'em.


and then i fu*k it up

i feel like running around in circles,screaming with my hands waving above my head

....


this is where i have to be truely fearless


and just step back up to the canvas...


when i paint what i am not invested in i always have a fall back position


"Oh, that is just for practise" "Oh, that is just an exercise" "Nah, i don't like that much"


it has no umbilical cord straight to my heart


but that is the kind of painting i am called to do


the kind with the umbilical cord straight to my heart


Not because i am a martyr (ok i am a recovering martyr)


but because in order for this work to mean something for me it has to be an expression of me.... it has to hold my soul in some form and reveal it to those who care to look...


and then their soul can be revealed too... and that revelation can be transmitted to another soul... and on it goes


this is the only way to heal the the world


and this is what i was born to do

being still so i can hear

this idea of being still has been reinforced in all sorts of ways...

this morning i got woken early and unable to go back to sleep but not wanting to disturb simon i lay there quietly and heard the world around me wake up... gentle rain, light emerging, one bird then hundreds greeting the day.

stillness gave me the gift of being with the miracle of a new day arriving. I didn't have to do anything about supporting it or shaping it, i just had to be still and the more still i was the more i could be present as it unfolded.

i am also reading "LIFE, PAINT AND PASSION. Reclaiming the magic of spontaneous expression. By Michele Cassou and Stewart Cubley.

it is a challenging book which alternately makes me want to lock myself in my painting space for a week or run and hide under the duvet

but the phrase which rang out to me last night was this

"Theories can be made one way or another about the content of your painting. .... There is an intelligence within you that is superior to any solution contrived by the mind. If yu dare follow the inner call without reservation, you are putting your trust in a reality that can never be captured by ideas or concepts. This is the challenge of creative exploration."

The mind loves theories - they are the noisy proclamations the mind can make that muddy the waters of creating.

I feel, in order to connect with the creative spirit that lives outside of me, that makes me feel like i am coming home when i am in it's presence and working through whatever it is that it delivers me, i must be quiet.

Quiet not only in the stillness of not making sounds but quiet in the head.

Not constantly asking if i have balance or what tonal values work or what my husband might say when he walks past...

none of that action and noise

what i desire is the stillness to be present to what is happening right inside me, right in front of me

then i won't be a painter with a reputation or a body of work or an income

then i will be painting

and that is what i want

creation and home - another version

I am in a constant struggle with my creative self

actually that is not true

i think my creative self is in a struggle with my conformist self and i am on the sidelines watching with that quick tennis match action (look to the left, whip head, look to the right, whip head, repeat)


"I really want to get this onto paper/canvas just out there somewhere I am thinking colour I am thinking unrealistic but bold I am thinking..."

"Now hang on just a minute... who the fuck do you think you are? You are not trained, your sense of line is shit, your colour ideas always turn out badly..."

"Yes but this feeling...."

"Feeling schmeeling, stop talking over me... I think you have forgotten how embarassing it was for you when you were trying your hardest and then it looked so amatureish..."

you get the picture

Anway i went to another painting class today with Brett a'Court I was quiet and struggling and feeling not good enough in the company of some quite accomplished artists

Brett took each of us aside asking where we wanted to go - at first i tried to think of the clever things i could say

but then i chose to be truthful

i told him what i connected to in painting was the feeling - Frida Kahlo's intricate tiny work didn't light my fire but her pain and passion did, Van Gogh's subjects didn't always make my eyes light up but his passion and courage did...

i told him i wanted to express in that way but i didn't have the technique

i know he felt my dejection

He said that to paint that way needed to have the courage to put myself out there without protection in the world. That it wouldn't always be pretty (but of course i quoted Elizabeth Cunningham at this juncture) but it would be real and full of feeling.

I said i wanted that.

and for the first time in a long time i felt a click of really wanting something.

Brett told me to paint sloppy and big and fast

and i took courage and trusted myself and i got the BIG canvas out of the car and i painted this still life

and i cried.

i know it isn't Frida or Vincent.

but holy crap it feels like me.

this creation brings me home.

to the home inside myself.

as much as i have that home i long for without time and space,

i am beginning to see i can trust the home inside myself

and the more i express that inner feeling outwardly

this is what stirred me up so much

it is called motherhood