Artist Time Defined

What is 'Artist Time'? For me, it means tuning into and awakening all my senses, but especially hearing and vision (not so much smell or taste due to allergies!) How about you - what are your strongest senses and do you tune into them on a regular basis?

I find that focusing upon one's strengths requires us to let go of some of our weaknesses. Here are some examples:

~ A film director might call this editing.

~ For an artist/painter it's about knowing when to stop.

~ Perhaps a poet leaves words and lines unspoken but implied, hence the phrase 'reading between the lines'.

~ An actor learns how not to overstate the case or over-act, this makes it more real.

In Process - acrylic, pastel & charcoal on masonite - 48" x 48"

I do believe that women are becoming stronger and more powerful and in turn this strengthens the men in profoundly new ways. Musical Ambiance: Ricky Lee Jones, Ghostyhead and Clannad, Macalla

Seeing Things For The First Time

Sinking into Artist-Time is sheer self-indulgence in a way and in another way, not at all! It is both and more. It is being present and open to:

heart emotion intuition dreams soul being feeling alive and on fire in every pore.

In Process - acrylic, pastel & charcoal on masonite - 48" x 48"

It is trusting the instincts of your hand, the brush, your colors and their combinations based upon years of loving them, knowing them, spending time with them, through devotion, nurturing and letting the paintings and colors nurture and heal oneself - it's all of this an so much more.

I can't imagine seeing the face of God/dess because She is everywhere and in everything.

Sometimes it may appear to others that we're being selfish, but how can we possibly feed and nourish others when we ourselves are starving? So we take and take and nourish and feed until sated and then we empty ourselves in giving, knowing that we will never go hungry again because now we understand what fullness means and we can share that knowing with all we meet. So far with this series - Journey Into Intimacy, I'm learning how not to finish a painting to perfection, but instead to let it be, not push it beyond where it wants to go, trusting completely in the process to guide me into a perfection I've never known before - non-attachment.

"I'm seeing things for the first time in my life." Sung by The Black Crowes ~ Seeing Things.

Musical Ambiance ~ The Black Crowes album, "Shake Your Money Maker" and Santana's album, "Supernatural".

Deus

Deus - acrylic and charcoal on masonite - 48" x 48"

As I sit in my studio I wind it down, morphing into 'Artist's Time' which requires no clock.

I listen to the birds flying and my dog breathing, as everything flows in and out of my body and I let my worries... a snake! Suddenly a large snake appears outside my open door and I am afraid! What if it's a rattlesnake?! It isn't. I take this Rosy Boa as a sign that I am going deeper today and that I am on track, alive in my veins.

I ask myself, "What is your purpose here on earth?"

And then I paint.

Laguna Beach ~ Flowers

It's all coming together now ~ life, work, art.

Deus (definition) - n. God. [Middle English, from Latin.]

Musical Ambiance: Erasure & Bjork.