In my conversations with other creatives particularly in the visual arts, it is common to hear that creatives feel misunderstood by the public in general and sometimes by their teachers, partners and parents. This, due to the public's lack of awareness of the time demands each creation insists from the artist, whether child or adult. Ordinary time ceases to exist when an artist is fully engaged in his or her work. This often results in isolation within families and relationships, presenting as stressful loneliness, which halts the creative process and leads to frustration and unfinished projects. In an attempt to address that issue, I was encouraged to share my own life journey as an artist. Perhaps you may resonate with what I share or dismiss it, I am okay with that. However, I have found that to find a person who truly understands the force and power and mobilization of energy that each creation enthusiastically demands of its creator, as a channel for expression, and who is open to understanding that everything the artist does, comes from a deep place of observation, inner environment and outer environment; caring and respect, is hard to find.
Our contemplation's require perculation time prior to manifesting anything physical for the viewer to see. Our brains never stop creating, whether we are still or moving. People may think we are doing nothing, but we are doing everything, as the process in our mind constantly invents. Artists love deeply, wishing mostly for there to be harmony and healing in life as they have a good grasp on the connectedness of the energy within all forms of life. They sense the energies as tangible. Artists work with these connections intuitively all the time. Stress for me is most often a result of loneliness which interferes with my creative process. Whereas solitude is sacred and beautiful, and very necessary for us creative's, being lonely, as in not having someone special to play with, laugh with, talk about your ideas with, is heavy on the heart and slows or extinguishes the creative drive. We need to smile and laugh with each other. Our chemicals require that action. I have experienced periods of non-painting externally, even though inside of me I continuously burst with ideas and creativity, so then my brain just creates in a different way and it conjures up poetry and stories and lyrics for songs instead. I cannot stop. When my heart just hurts too much and I have walked the forests and beaches as much as I can, I have to find a way to put the music back into my soul, so that I can push through my melancholy. I am grateful for the music composers and musicians who provide for me their artistry of sound, feeding my senses, holding my hand and midwifing my new canvases of expression.
Most times when I go into my place of transcendent solitude when working on my creations, I get very tired, although it is a good exhaustion and I sleep well, even if my sleep is brief. Sometimes my creation encompasses me for days at a time, just creating and sleeping, not even talking to anyone else. It is as if I then have to come up to breathe, from having gone on a deep-water dive. Breathe that is, in a way of actually talking and interacting with another person. Before I can go back into the depths of where I have been. This is a strangeness, but it is a creative reality not a madness, as some may think, but just the way it is. So that is why it is hard to find people who genuinely understand what is required to create from your inner being or soul. I find that people do not realize how their energies disturb the artist's delicate space if they should intrude into the sanctity of the creative space in progress. For if they do, the repercussion is that the artist's creativity is halted for the day, their energies hijacked, and they may as well do something else and start again the next day.
Gold Creek: This is a painting I made a few years back and it is very important to me, as it is where I go most days to just disappear into the beauty of the surroundings. I used to hike to this viewpoint in Golden Ears Provincial Park in Maple Ridge BC., Canada and I just loved to stand in this particular space where all the natural lines converged into the depths of the ever-present running creek. The colours of gold and purple, are how the water, the forest, the mountains, and air, made me feel. At ease. Refreshed. Relaxed and uplifted from any worries. I love this place in reality and in my head. So I share this window of beauty with you today. As it is my window. So you can take your eyes on a Gold Creek holiday too.
Mostly, I feel we just need to jump start our brains with an alternative perspective on what we think we see. It is a fact that our brains love surprises. Our brains get excited to figure things out. I hope to teach as many people as I can to draw from real life studies, as the exercise of drawing is likely to ignite new thought patterns and will possibly be a helpful tool to increase understanding of artists and the visual art process.
In closing, I do believe we have to strive to find a delicate balance of solitude and social interaction. Humans are social creatures, our chemical activation's are dependent upon the human touch. Smiling with another, laughing with another, is good for our health. Now go outside and play!