Heart's Music

This is a custom piece I made for a young couple who just got married, I filled it with elements that would speak to their heart, it's called, Heart's Music.  It has its own story to tell, beginning with the phrase that came to me as I thought about this young couple. 'Love is the music of the heart.' 'Love is the heart's music.'

The abstract impression of a tree, the might oak, running up the side of the canvas branching out blending with the various symbols I chose.

The Celtic Knot (framing the Cross) is symbolic of the Oak tree's root system and is meant to remind us that beneath our surface we have divine inner resources to hold us steady and give us wisdom and strength through out life.  The Celtic Trinity Symbol (top left) represents Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It also represents, Past, Present and Future.  Who we are today, the relationships we build are the sum of those elements.

The compass conveys that 'Love should always be our 'True North' I wrote the phrases, "Love is the music of the heart and Love is the heart's music" repeatedly and wove it into the band going across the canvass along with music notes, painted, crackled and flooded with copper gold ink.  I love how it turned out!

Tumbling from the branches are clocks to serve as a reminder that time is fleeting and to savour the moments and the date of this young couples wedding floating across the canvass.

Along the bottom I used the words taken from 1 Corinthians 13:7 and typed them repeatedly representing the root system of the oak tree.  "Love, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails."

Like I said, this piece has a story to tell :-)

I managed to overcome the recent speed bump that had me slowed to a crawl and got the first layer of paint down on that big canvas. Now to figure out what comes next!

Abstract Distraction

It's been a full week of painting, really happy with the pieces I'm working on, which is always a good thing.

The large teal piece is going well and I'm close to being done, here's a detailed shot of one of my fav parts of the painting.  Also love the vintage look to this 20 x 24".

I should have a good representation of what I do for the Dooryard Art Festival Market, that my sister, Kellie and I are participating in.  We are excited and nervous all at the same time as neither one of us have been in an art fair.  It's a collaboration, which began with her offering me moral support by coming to help me with the fair, and then kind of grew into putting some of her photographs on display as well.  I love having sisters!

This last photo is a mixed-media piece using my blogging friend's photo, Frances Robinson. She has been kind enough to permit me to use some of her photos in my work, her images really speak to me.

I also plan on creating a mixed-media piece using some of Kellie's photos, why I never thought of it sooner I'll never know! But if I can manage it time wise there will be some pieces at the fair :-)

"...as strange as it seems, when artists paint, they tend to forget that life cannot be infused into the canvas by manipulating colors and shapes. They forget that the breath of life arises spontaneously only when the work is done from the heart and soul, in humility and surrender." Michele Cassou

Flat Surfaces Pitfall

If you could see my loft studio right now, you'd wonder what blew through here!  Every available flat surface has stuff strung all over it!  Canvases drying, canvases partly finished, those finished and awaiting being safely packed away until the art fair or shipping, and mixed-media painting supplies everywhere.  I know what I'll be doing in the next little while.

It's funny, my husband and I joke about his problem with flat surfaces, if it's flat he will set something down on it then wonder where he left it :-)  Here I am with every flat surface obscured by art related stuff.  Not enough hours, and in my case not enough health to keep it cleared, until today I just can't create in the chaos anymore.  That's another interesting thing about we humans. Some of us need things very clean in order to feel right in our own skin, not me by the way.  Others require a little more lived in and then there are those that can thrive when everything is out and in sight around them.  Quirks, you got to love them, it's what makes life interesting.

Read this at random in a book I'm thinking of reading, (bought it second hand)


"...a deep, inner yearning to express themselves, plus persistence!  Without persistence, they could never have overcome their inhibitions, their doubts and fears, long enough to permit their true inner selves to function...a matter of patient, quiet, firm, dogged work.  Please believe me when I say that your success depends not so much upon technical training, as upon your personal growth, your adaption to the learning process and your ability to let yourself go!" The Creative Way To Paint by David Friend

Having trouble getting a photo that shows the colours accurately but this gives you an idea.  6 more little pieces to add to my mountain theme, plus a larger mixed-media piece and more being prepped but not shown.

Hope you are having a great weekend!

A Little Foiling

Took time out from practicing my brush strokes on the door casings and painted this small abstract.  I had prepped it last week and finally got around to working some paint onto the foiled surface.  I'm down to the finish and find it helps to snap a picture or two as it gives me a better perspective on it overall.

"To create from intuition, you need to free yourself from the demands and expectations of product. These pressures strangle your potential to create and prevent true enjoyment and passion. Inside you lives the worst judge and the most tyrannical ideas of what you should do and how your finished product should look. The amount of freedom you experience is always a function of how much permission you give yourself."   Michele Cassou, Point Zero

Gone a Little Pollock In The Studio

Okay I confess to having gone off the grid on this one.  The trouble began when I went to the studio with a plan in mind.  You'd think I'd know by now that plans seldom work out for me, not in the studio.  Of course you know that artist/teacher Michele Cassou would have something to say about it...

"To create you do not need to come up with a plan, but rather take away all plans to give natural originality, style, and wisdom a chance to manifest from intuition."  Point Zero

There came a point when what I had planned and was trying to make happen on the canvas was dead in the water, a wash of it!  Out came the squeegee, brayer, brushes, inks and one mass of clogged up paint.  (That's a whole other story, a brand of paint I'm going to have to give up on, it just keeps drying up in the tip of the bottle leading to endless stabbing with a needle to clear it again and again, sheesh)

It was crazy fun! There was paint splattered all over me, glasses, cloths anything exposed including the floor.  I kept thinking what on earth would my mother think of the mess I was making.  I grinned like a maniac and kept splatting and spraying.

So I have one wild background to work from, at this point I'm not making any plans as to what comes next!  Instead I'm asking myself what this painting is expressing, something Cassou encourages artist to do, ask questions.

"With questions, you can dig into your creative potential as far as you want. The questions gently knock at the door of your inspiration, or bang on it, or blast it open, or anything in between so that your heart and soul can be engaged." Point Zero by Michele Cassou

My creative door got blasted, how about yours?

Stirring The Paint

#29 "Interference"  Acrylics on canvas

It's been a good week so far, sold two new paintings helping to keep me in paint supplies!  This is the newest completed piece.  Just a nice size 24 x 24" on Gallery Wrap Canvas.

A few more thoughts from another David DuChemin ebook, Vision Is Better
"So what do you do when the thing that sustains you begins to tire you? What do you do when the shelves are bare? Restock the shelves...I think the way we do that is a little counter-intuitive: we shoot more, write more (paint more) we go back to the well and fill it with the same bucket we use for drawing water in the first place.  We get intentional about the process and stop worrying about the product.  We stir the paint. We take more risks. We work more not less...you take the time to do more personal projects and create something for you and not your clients.  It is not just as important that you feed your own creative soul before you feed your market, it is more important...What do you do to stir the paint? Where do you go to fill your well?"

Without realizing it these last several pieces have been all about well filling for me.  Doing things that stimulate and entice me to risk new things.  It's been great.  Hope all of you are finding your own ways to 'stir the paint' this week!

Just Begin-Then Finish!

'Affinity' 20x24" Mixed-Media on Gallery Wrap Canvas-SOLD

My sister Kellie shared some things David DuChemin said in his e-book, "Vision Is Better 2"  They are hard hitting truths worth sharing.

"How great your idea is means almost nothing without the will to carry it out."

"The trap lies in thinking that coming up with the ideas is where the value is.  It isn't.  The value lies in your ability to execute."

"We sometimes get paralyzed by too many options.  A million ideas and we're stuck because we can't pick one.  Stop it.  Pick one.  Move forward.

Because picking the "wrong one" and getting it done puts you in motion and is better than doing nothing at all  Just begin."

"Don't let your piles of notes and your great sounding ideas lull you into thinking you're making progress.  You make progress when you begin."

"Most of us don't need more inspiration.  We need to begin acting on the inspiration we've already been given."

Added a few more rings to the centre of this piece along with some collage elements before calling it done.  I think it improved the overall look of the design. Hope so because I now have it listed in my Art Gallery page and facebook! (NOTE: Affinity sold shortly after I posted it on FB. Yeah!)

NOTE: Now that I figured out that changing the format for my comments box allows me to reply to individuals comments I am doing just that.  If you've left me comments in the last couple of posts know that I am appreciative and have responded to your willingness to share :-)

Oddly Stuck

I feel stuck!  A new year is suppose to be about fresh starts, renewed energy and determination.  Blogs and articles abound on tips, hints, motivations of how to get yourself going in 2012.  But I'm afraid I've hit the skids instead, and of course when that happens you start looking for reasons why, because hey we all want to at least 'feel' productive :-)

It doesn't help that my body has been going through an intense time of flare ups, the pain is acute, sleep is brief. (that's why I'm writing this at 3:30 in the morning)  There are a number of artist friends out there who suffer from various chronic conditions, like fibromyalgia, arthritis, back/neck pain and others. Living with chronic pain is a challenge to our artist endeavours, and I wonder how others handle these intense times when everything seems to slow with the pain?

The desire to create bubbles away inside you, but you have little energy or directive to begin and I'm trying to be okay with that for now.  This battle is fought and won in the mind and spirit so I focus on keeping them strong until my body begins to quite down.

These are not new pieces, but when bringing them home from Bistro 610 (formerly called Fusion) this is how I choose to put them on the wall and was quite struck by how they 'go' together without having been painted to do so.  In fact it was a potential client who brought my attention to how well they complement each other.  Which now has me considering doing a series of individual pieces that will co-ordinate with each other.  I know not a new concept to most of you, but this is my third year of painting and something I've not consciously done to date :-)  Something to let percolate.

"The creative spirit demands persistence."  Shaun McNiff

Exhibition & Meet the Artist

It's been a time of first for me in the past week.  My first exhibition  and my first 'Meet the Artist' at Fusion Cafe & Bistro.  The pieces I had on display have all sold!  Can you say, happily surprised!  I got to meet some of the people who are purchasing my work and it's a humbling experience but a brilliantly happy one at the same time.  I enjoyed hearing their responses to the piece(s) they had chosen, art really has a voice all it's own. It speaks first to me as I work with it's elements to bring it to life on the canvas, then it speaks to the individual who's eye it captures.  Maybe that's why I don't find it hard to part with the pieces once I've finished the process.  For me, the power has always been in the process, the act of creating, feeling my way along as it teaches me things about myself, about persistence, about what it means to complete.     So I'm in my studio this week, creating some new pieces to add to the display.

Oh and I got to meet Doug Dickinson the journalist for the Bugle, wonderful to put a face to the name and thank him in person for making me sound good in print! I appreciate everyone who came out and stopped to chat, thank you.

I have to tell you, having all these firsts take place at Fusion has been the greatest gift for me. Tracie has been wonderfully encouraging and helpful, she has created an amazing gathering place.  

My sisters, daughter and I had the best time during the 'Meet the Artist' enjoying the delectable Brunch Buffet, well they did, I was too nervous to eat much but did enjoy another one of Fusion's incredible cheese cakes. Yum!  Even had my son drop in with his wife Lori, who has become quite the PR person for my art and of course my two Grand-daughters.  Loved it, when the youngest, Lyvia asked me, "Nanny are you an artist?"  I looked at her and grinned and said, 'you know what, I think I might be!' We both had a good chuckle.

Looks like the fist layers of texture are dried so I'm out of here!

I'm In Print!

It's been quite a week, a little surreal.  Not the least of which was having Doug Dickinson interview me for an article in The Bugle-Observer, Woodstock's weekly newspaper.  Doug did a wonderful job making me sound pretty good and I am grateful for the opportunity.  The Bugle was kind enough to give me permission to scan and share the article with you.

I am hoping that if you click on the image you will be able to read the full article.  But just incase, here are a few snippets from the interview:

"It was in 2010 that she discovered her real passion for art.  "I picked up a canvas to see if what I was doing in my journal would translate onto a canvas, and something just exploded inside of me as I wandered through the world of abstraction,"

"You could say I came to the party late, I'm 55 and am only now finding the artist within me."

All I can say, is thank you Doug for a great article, my first!

Art On Display

This is a shot of the Boxed In Remix in it's final stages, the background is actually a deeper burgundy-brown but it's the best I could get before it went to be put on display at my daughter-in-law, Lori's work place.

Lori just sent me a photo of Boxed In Remix hanging on her office wall.  Looks nice if I must say so myself.

More of my work is now on display at Fusion Cafe & Bistro from now until the end of November.  Unfortunately we were so busy getting the pieces hung that I forgot to take any pictures of the whole process!  I will try and get some before the end of the week though.  I love Fusion's decor and ambience and my paintings look great on their walls, thank you Tracie!

Oh and I did my first interview about my art, to be published in a local newspaper.  That was interesting and all a little mind bending!  Will share more once/if it makes it to print.

Boxed In Remix

Not sure if you remember this canvas, Boxed In, but this will be it's third remix :-)  What can I say, sometimes I like to take an old canvas and give it a new direction.  It's sporting a very different look today so I thought I'd share.  This is done in acrylics then highlighted with bronze ink, gives it a wonderful aged feel.  I'll let it set for awhile before I finish it out.


Still working on the new triptych, I believe it's ready for paint, once I get my colour mixes tweaked I'll get started on it, this is a new commissioned piece.


Did you know there are 5 universal shapes? These shapes show up around the world, across all cultures in artwork and the like.  According to cultural anthropologist, Angeles Arrien, "the square symbolizes: stability, solidity, and security.  Meaning: Drawing a square mirrors the process of constructing a foundation. These people are ready to build, to implement a plan, to manifest ideas. They need consistency, accountability and completion."


Interesting isn't it? Helps to explains why I don't tend to like working with squares very much! Notice how loosely my squares are filled in, consistency & completion are not big ticket items for me, I have to live life so on the fly because of my health that these elements became things I had to let go of in order to find a way to be at peace.   I'm a circle, spiral and cross girl myself :-)  
Angeles Arrien says,
"Circle: Symbolizes, wholeness, the experience of unity

Meaning: When people are engaged in the search for wholeness they aspire to independence and individuation. What they need most is space, room in which to find themselves, and develop their own identity.

In Relationships: These people will feel loved and trusted when allowed plenty of space. If the space they need is not offered to them, they will simply take it. It is wise to wait and to allow the person who is in this process to initiate communication and contact.

Underlying Fear: entrapment, being caught in a situation that will restrict or restrain them"

In a nutshell they mean:
Circle: Symbolizes, wholeness, the experience of unity
Cross: Symbolizes, relationships, integration
Spiral: Symbolizes, growth, evolution
Square: Symbolizes, stability, solidity, and security
The fifth symbol is the Triangle, symbolizing: dreams, visions and goals


Intriguing why we move towards certain of these shapes in our work at different times.  I first heard about these universal shapes while reading Betsy Dillard Stroud's book, Painting From The Inside Out. Betsy uses a lot of personal symbolism in her work.

Natural Movements

Did another practice run using shades of grey, silver and purple, a new colour palette for me.  I keep these gesso boards around for trying new stuff out on and for my Grand-daughters when we decide to sling paint.  Since taking these pictures, I've done an interference silver float over top of the greys and silver.  I'm liking the results. The purple has receded into the background more which I wanted and the interference silver has settled around the palette knife scrapings creating an interesting effect. The whole thing has a more luminous look and greater depth.

I've really been enjoying the challenge of using these colours and trying to figure out what had me so stumped about using them.  I think one of the main things was finding a way to express my own unique style of layers and numerous washes/glazes that bring the pieces to rich, deep tones.  Or as Shaun McNiff said in Trust The Process,

"Approach your painting with the goal of expressing movements that you find natural."

By denying myself the desire for depth and deeper tones I was never happy with the results I was getting. I wasn't following my own natural movements when I paint.  Interesting huh?

And here is my other canvas, I have some areas I want to tone down and a few other touches then it will be time to let both pieces, the practice piece I've shared here and this one to rest.  I need to hang or set them up so I can see them and over time determine where or what else I need to do to bring them to that place of completion.

Till Next Time!

Repeats Are A Good Thing

Been working on several pieces at once this past week. While one is drying I play with another piece. These are a few shots of a canvas my daughter requested in shades of purple and blue. Wish the picture quality was better, still these give you an idea of what they are like.

Also been reading more from Michele Cassou in Point Zero, she has some interesting thoughts and observations so I thought I'd share a few more with you. I've already posted about the dragons of creative block that we face, but then she goes into several chapters on each of the dragons. One that struck me was a chapter on 'Repeats."

"Doing something more than once is often thought of as being uninventive and uninspired. It attracts the Dragon of Control, which loves to struggle with it."

She explains that there are two types of repeats, a 'controlled repeat' done out of our own frustrations when we can't come up with anything new to do. Then there is what she calls, 'spontaneous repeats' which arise out of a deep place of feeling and exploration, when something powerful or significant is being exposed and so we return to it again and again, each time going a little deeper into the heart of inspiration.

Michele says, "The full expression of certain feelings can happen only through repetitions. Repeats signal substance rather than dullness. Dragons try to discourage painters from going further by making them think they are wasting their time.  During repeats, the painter is actually exploring some new inner ground, some place out of the way, some secret area difficult to reach."

Repeats can come in the form of repeated patterns, symbols, gestures or images, etc.  Now I don't know about you but I found that very encouraging, because I find myself often wanting to re-explore some gesture or pattern in my work and have worried that I might just be a one act show!  Anyhow, something to consider as you face the next blank page or canvas or whatever your creative outlet might be.

NOTE: This is an old post that went unpublished so I decided to share it now as you might enjoy what I shared from the book, Point Zero.

Faith In The Process

Test of Time

Trust the process, seems to be my watchword for doing life and releasing creativity.  I just came from reading David DuChemin's latest blog post Rehabilitating Art.  He is recovering from a bone crushing fall, I'll not try to sum up his post for he is an amazing writer as well as photographer, but do check it out.

Although nothing quite so dramatic as what David has endured, I do understand the battle to push through the pain and how living in that kind of chronic state changes how you see things, realigns what has value as you learn to move with the flow of the process.  Which brings me to the book I have just begun to read and am enthralled with the insights, my head bobbing in agreement with so much that the author has to say:

Test of Time

"Even the best teachers of creativity encounter a common resistance to self-expression in their classes...We all know intuitively that our spontaneous creative expressions elude the habitual monitoring of our inner censors, revealing things to others that are outside our conscious control." Trust The Process by Shaun McNiff

He goes on to talk about our hidden beliefs that our art might not be worth exploring because 'it's' reserved for only the talented few in our thinking.  He then talks about how we can get stuck on training the literal mind with step by step technique and avoid the deeper process of creating.

"Most of the educational system is established on the assumption that learning follows a logical and predictable pattern of acquiring knowledge...There is very little emphasis within our educational systems on the education of the imagination, which requires sustained encounters with uncertainty." Trust The Process 

I can't tell you what it did for me to read that last statement, it summed up my learning struggles throughout my life and at the same time tapped into the wonderful world of 'uncertainty' that art has brought forth in me.  This in turn ties into David's post on 'Rehabilitating Art,' because I get that life with chronic pain and frequent flare up's of fibro trigger points and migraines has brought my life sharping in tune with the inner flow of living with uncertainty.  I never know what I'm going to be able to do from one day, sometimes one hour to the next.

What does this have to do with art, simply this, creating takes an act of faith in the process, it has little to do with the fine execution of technique, it is an intuitive giving in to a deeper force from with in.

"I have learned that I must let "the process" follow its course...frustration builds...the process arouses emotion and draws everything into itself.  If we are able to stay with a situation it will carry us to a new place.  The 'process' knows where it needs to go... " Trust The Process 

Oddly enough chronic pain became my teacher of uncertainty that has allowed me to press into the process when it comes to creating. It doesn't mean I have extraordinary talent, but it does me that I come naked and unashamed to "the process."

"The most threatening element is the lack of confidence that people have when the process becomes difficult and tense.  They don't realize that the conflict and uneasiness that they are experiencing are necessary and "part of the process." Transformation occurs when we lose our way and find a new way to return." Trust The Process


I'm hoping the rest of the book is as insightful as the fist few chapters.  So enjoy the process, you can trust it to bring you through to the other side.


A new blogging friend Leovi from Spain left a comment on my piece I've been tentatively calling Rise Up and a title really resonated with my spirit from their comment, "Test of Time"

Lessons From 'Process'

You've got to love process...If end product is all we have in mind then creating art could become the thing that defeats you completely.  I've been working more on the teal canvas that I posted about last time.  I tried a technique to help me establish some texture forms that suggest flowers blooming, it worked pretty well, until...I layered in a little more ink colours and lost the original effects I had achieved.  I worked with the mess for a time and then knew I just didn't know how to get it back to where my original plans had taken me.

So it's gone and I've brought the canvas back to it's beginning stages and will consider what I'll do with it now.

The process always teaches me something and this time was no different.  What I realized is how vulnerable or affected I am by 'voices.'  Maybe it's because all of this is so new, it's only been a couple of years since I began painting and my life long habit of valuing other peoples voices/opinions over my own has made itself evident in my art process.  You see when I began this piece and had the background done and my little flourishes on it, a voice in my life that I value greatly told me that for them I could stop right there because it was complete for them.  It was a wonderful voice meant to encourage, but it put me immediately in conflict with myself, because it was only a start for me and I began to over think it, worry on some underground level that I was going to ruin this 'completed piece' if I continued.  So I left it for a very long time but I could never get past feeling it was only the beginning, because for me nothing is sacred when I work on a painting. Unless I stop listening to myself and move into that doubting, critical mind stage and then God help me I'm toast!

I'll not bore you with more of my life lessons through art. Hope you are enjoying the process as you create :-)

Following Our Own Style

"When the creative processes grind to a halt, we have that unbearable feeling of being totally clogged...Instead of experiencing relaxed, energetic concentration, we jump avidly towards any distraction, no matter how trivial or ridiculous; we become easily tired; when we look back at our work nothing seems good enough; our eyelids glaze over; our brain cells chug to a standstill."  Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch


As you can see I'm still making my way through the book Free Play, not because the books slow reading but it's been a difficult summer for me physically so my reading time has been hit and miss.  Anyway, this chapter is on the function of both the muse and editor in our creative process, something we all have our scuffles with, if not a down right brawl by times!

I've been hedging my way around the teal  piece that I'd begun, then painted myself into a situation I didn't know how to get out of.  My thoughts on how to continue were pushing me towards a realm that I've never been comfortable in, realism, not even abstract realism.  Then yesterday, with head pounding out the warning that a storm front was moving in, (yes my head has continued to be a weather gage!) I found a way to bring it back into my natural creative bent.  Something Zom wrote in Pt One of her blog series on 'Developing Your Style' made me laugh and then find a way to return to my natural voice.

Gears stencil by Mary Beth Shaw

"You don't get to choose your style anymore than you get to choose your height or your personality or your looks. I started realising this at a certain point in my development when no matter what I painted, it looked like something that I had painted. This used to frustrate me. I used to look at a piece I was working on and say with scorn "that looks like something I would do." Zom


That last line made me burst out laughing because I'd done the same thing.  Gosh we are funny creatures.   So I'm back on track for now, adding a collage element that spoke straight to the situation by Graham Cook:


"Failure is not so much falling down as it is refusing to get up after a fall..."

Inspirational Messes

How is it even possible that every inch of working spaces I have are loaded?  Doesn't seem to take long or maybe it's because progress has been slow that things are in such a mess.

We all have our ways of working, and one of mine I'm discovering is that I have to let a piece hang for a time before I know I'm done.  Putting it up on a wall gives me a whole new perspective and I begin to catch the little details that need fixing, additions or some alteration.

Recently Maxine Masterfield, one of my favourite experimental artists posted some pictures of her latest work, Daisy, 2 years in the making!  I found that encouraging to know that my few weeks to a few months fall in that 2 year range :-)  Mind you Maxine was working on a whole new concept and I'm sure that accounted for the long period of time before she felt it was complete.

I have Maxine's books and DVD, the woman is a pioneer in experimental abstract art, and just recently she has posted pictures of new works on her facebook,  they have the most amazing effects, like nothing I have ever seen before.

I'm no Masterfield, but I find great inspiration from artist like her, they encourage me to be bold and experiment within my own capacity and style.    

Free Play

"Joyous Struggle"  24x38" 

"The artist's life cannot be otherwise than full of conflicts, for two forces are at war within him--on the one hand the common human longing for happiness, satisfaction and security in life, and on the other a ruthless passion for creation which may go so far as to override every personal desire...There are hardly any exceptions to the rule that a person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative fire."  Carl Jung

Now that is a statement that will rock your creative world!  Is it any wonder so many wonderfully talented creative souls go through such torment trying to make a living in some job or another while their hearts cry out for meaning, purpose and creative expression.  This has been the topic of discussion with my sister, Kellie and I since she found herself unexpectedly unemployed and bringing to the forefront this conflict between needing work but desperately wanting creative expression.  It's a battle many are or have faced, can I make a living with my art form and if not then what kind of work would allow me the emotional, mental energy after the work day is over to create?  Sadly, this is a question that has no easy answers in this day and age.  I watch my younger sisters, under so much stress, often trying to do 2-3 peoples work load in one have nothing left over for the things that they love, that feed their souls, that make life worth living.  It's a hell of a thing.

24x36 still in progress

Rice has written about this a number of time on her own blog in her books,  and at Create Mixed Media.  So have numerous others who faced down this same challenge and make some dramatic life alterations.  Books have been written, discussions abound, but the long and short of it is, there are no easy answers for the creative heart.

"In the creative life we pass through at least three stages: innocence or discovery, experience or the fall, and integration or rejuvenation or mastery. Birth, blockage, and breakthrough.  In our original state of innocence, creativity evolved out of the child's primary creative experience of disappearing--pure absorption in free play.  But eventually we experience life's battle, the long list of evils that seem to come intrinsically woven into our existence on earth, as well as internal impedimenta of fear of judgment. Sometimes before we can reach a breakthrough to clarity we live through a dark night of the soul..." Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch

The ability and longing for creative expression is a high power gift.  It has great value to the individual and to our world.  It has to, otherwise why would unseen forces work so hard to crush and possibly obliterate it from our lives?  So fight the good fight my creative friends, nourish your spirit and find room in your life somehow to release your gift to the world.

The Joyous Struggle

"Joyous Struggle" 24 X 38 Mixed Media on Canvas

Do you ever feel that while you are working on your art, the art is working on you?  It's a strange and wondrous thing to see how threads of things going on around you, within you becomes part of the process of creating.  How many times have I thought I was done, until I step back and take the long look that leads me back into the painting and the next step that I hope will bring completion.


"Joyous Struggle," I don't know how to express it more precisely, but that defines the creative process for me.  My sister and I, Kellie, have been talking a lot about the creative bent within us and our personal struggle to 'value' it, to see it's worth in this world.  Kel's been going through some difficult life transitions, the kind that make you take a long hard look at who you truly are, what fuels your tank.  We were rather odd ducks in our family nucleus, quiet and absorbed in the world of our imaginations.  Work never stopped on the family farm, so practical and pragmatic were the watchwords.  Truth be told, little value is put on the artistic in the world we occupy.


Something artist/author Makoto Fujimura wrote in 'A Letter to Young Artists' echoed the things Kel and I had been discussing:

"Remember your first love—how much you enjoyed creating as a child. If you ever lose that sense of joy, you will need to reflect on why you lost that spark... the craft of expression takes much “dying to self” and much discipline. A discipline of any form takes perseverance. But when we are going through a period of training, we must remember the reason for our training. Our journey needs to have a specific direction. Our direction need not be toward being successful and being famous. We need to start from your first love; what we cherish, what we are, and what we value.

There will be a quiet joy even within that wrestling.“But there may be a period, while the wings are just beginning to grow, when it cannot do so…The lumps on the shoulders…may even give it an awkward appearance.” C.S. Lewis

Have you ever felt awkward, and felt the “lumps”? If you are an artist, perhaps you began your journey realizing that you are different from others. We have gotten used to having these “lumps” and accepted the fact that to the world the “lumps” look strange and unnatural. Your teachers and your friends may not fully understand your intuition to try to fly with your winged “lumps.” What if Lewis is right, and you are destined to “fly”? What if our awkwardness, and our uniqueness points to the potential of the person we are meant to become? In order to learn to fly, you need to be patient, and ready to experience many failures; we need an environment where we can fail often, but you also need opportunities to peer into the wonders and mysteries of the vista of the world to come." Mako Fujimura

He expresses it so beautifully and served to be one more thread woven into this joyous struggle of finding and expressing that part of me that has long been missing and is only now coming to light. The hardest thing my sister and I had to face was by saying that our artistic side held little value in the world, we in effect we saying a huge portion of ourselves had no value. I suspect we are not alone :-)