A couple of weeks ago I felt exuberant. I felt my new paintings were strong and I was expressing a balance of creativity, skill, expression of experience and content, uniquely mine. I felt comfortable with my personal language of marks and media and I could begin to dig much deeper into the experience of daily life to strengthen the content of my work.
Inspired by Robert Genn's June 25, 2007 newsletter in which he wrote about Emily Carr, I dug through my file cabinet to find my Emily Carr folder that held a pile of papers with quotes I had copied from several of her books. When I discovered her, twenty-five years ago, I did not care much for her paintings, but I felt I found a kindred spirit. Over the years, when I strayed from the path of painting from spirit, I thought of Emily and would do my best to head back in a better direction. Among the papers in the file folder where a couple of pages from one of my journals. I thought it odd that they would be in the Emily Carr folder, so I read them to see how it was that they might relate. They didn't. They did, however, make it perfectly clear to me that I still struggle with the same mental and emotional obstacles in my life and that I have not broken the habits that hold me back, the habits that keep me from growing as a spiritual being and as an artist. I could have written the journal entries yesterday. How distressing.
Since that rude awakening, I have felt numb. That, too, is part of my habitual cycle. My solution, in order to not find myself in this same repeating cycle in another twenty-five years, is to consciously behave differently in as many small, everyday situations as I can, throughout my waking hours. I doubt than anyone could notice the difference in my behavior. I, on the other hand, feel as if a major coup is going on inside of me, making me rather uncomfortable and a bit disoriented.
The result of this exercise in moving forward is that my point of view has shifted; "truths" have revealed themselves as "attitudes". That realization opened a giant can of worms. This is just the beginning of an exciting journey, certainly not an easy one. At this point, I have nothing to lose by being even bolder and more daring as an artist and as a human being. It is easy to be bold and daring on the outside. It is far more difficult to be bold and daring on the inside.
