perfect discovery

"perfect discovery"

I have been through a lot. And as my life has been pulled from one phase to the next, so has my art. I see that it's literally a reflection of what's going on inside of me, I know that. And I'm still intrigued by the way it teaches me about myself in ways that no friend, counselor, or self-help book can.

The past few weeks I've been really into taking old scraps and making them into something new. I now see the significance.

I think it's part of a healing process, but it looks to me like I'm taking old broken pieces of myself - things that were let go of, ignored, stifled, or suppressed, things that have changed over the years, things that were packed away - and looking at them with new eyes.

How did I become the way I am today? What can I do with all of these broken pieces? How can I make this new and whole again?

Those are some of the questions that have been on my mind as I see these pieces take shape.

This one, in particular, was really hard for some reason. I had originally been using this piece of paper underneath a painting to catch the dripping paint so that it wouldn't splatter onto the floor (those pink and blue splatters on the bottom layer). I saved the paper to use again, but one day I was teaching Ralph about mixed media painting - I’d spread out all the different supplies I had and grabbed a few pieces of “scrap paper” to work with. So this was in that stack of scrap paper, and when I saw it, something about it told me this was the “first layer” of a painting. (for more about my painting process, click here)

I got out a watercolor pencil and wrote down the words that were on my mind across the top of the paper. Then I made one "response" after another, listening to whatever felt good to add next, and doing it.

I looked through my mixed media supplies and found a Zip-loc bag full of magazine pages and scraps I’ve saved since high school. I used to decorate my binder covers with them. Anyway, one of the pages I’ve saved forever has a picture of a giant amusement park swing on it - you know, the ones that light up like a carousel and you’re suspended as it swings you around its axis in a circle and tilts to the side a bit, makes you feel like you’re floating.

I've added parts of swing to my vision board because I imagine that feeling when I’m writing music - suspended, floating, lit up - so adding a little piece of it here on this mixed media painting felt uplifting and like I'm on the right track.

But there was this big spot on the paper that no matter what I added to it or painted around it, it just felt wrong.

So I dug through my paper scraps one more time and found this beautiful bird (I think it’s a heron?). I love birds. And though it has literally nothing to do with anything else on this painting, though it's pretty bare in terms of color and design, it made total sense to add it right there on top of the mess, to literally cover up the part that was bothering me with something that felt new and beautiful.

But the bird was so different than every other element of the painting that it did stick out a little bit, so I decided to soften it down. I used some thin white paint to blend around it and out towards the edge of the watercolor paper. I covered over the words so that they felt softer too.

“perfect” and “discovery” stared at me.

I stared back and thought to myself, “this feels like me.”

There are very few paintings I’ve ever finished that caused me to feel that way. Most of them are just satisfying to finish, and though they all have their own symbolic message or meaning to them, not all of them truly “feel like me.”

But this one did. And it’s very different than most of the work I’ve done to date. It’s very different from the other paintings that have also “felt like me.”

And now I understand why - because it literally is me. It is totally representative of where I’m at right now.

I am the scrap paper.

I was used to keep a mess from spilling.

I was used to keep the surface clean.

I am the keeper of what spilled over and was left with me.

I am the one that is stuck with a mess.

I have done everything I can

to fix it, to blend it, to change it, to make peace with it,

to make it beautiful again.

I have added my inspiration to it

and put my dreams into it,

a way of trying to keep going

when I probably should have stopped.

And still there was this mess

I couldn’t do anything about.

So I looked through all of me and

AHA!

This!

I will put this

beautiful new thing

right on top and it will cover up the mess.

It will make it all new again…

Well.

Okay, that was good,

but now everything else has to settle down.

Everything else has to be calm

for this new thing to work.

How can I make everything else calm?

I must soften up all those thoughts

that used to tell me everything has to be perfect to work out.

I have to accept

that the best discoveries are made when we

let go of perfection

and what we think has to happen

in order to allow and receive what happens

naturally, softly, gently.

What unfolds on its own.

But to do that, everything else must be calm.

And in this calm you see, the beautiful is still the center of it all,

it’s still the focus.

But everything else must be

calm.

And this, my friends,

is the perfect discovery.

You may not understand this, and that’s okay with me. I know it’s a bit abstract.

But that’s the whole point of art isn’t it? To express what’s hard to put into words? To reveal the within?

♥