There is this passion that I have for creating art, this fire lit within me by my Creator. It truly is a gift, this giggly-feel-good-God-space and I absolutely love it!!! It’s a place where the world melts away and my whole body relaxes and I am connected to something so much bigger than me or this world I live in. And it’s not just about creating art, it’s about touching people’s lives and inspiring people through my art and through this process of creativity and life. I started this creative journey in 2002 making cards and quickly progressed to making journals. Over the years my creative interests have expanded into using paint, making jewelry, sewing, mixed media, pretty much anything creative. From the moment I fell in love with it in 2002 I came up with the slogan: touching people’s lives one creation at a time. I knew that with my creativity (at that point I certainly would not have called myself an artist) I wanted to have a profoundly positive effect on people. I wanted my creativity to reach in and tap on their soul, for my work to move them in the most amazing way. Although I didn’t quite understand at the time that I wanted to inspire people, my spirit did because I wrote: may you dream the most amazing dream, and from that dream create something so profound, as to inspire others to dream, create and inspire.
So much has happened over the past nine years. I struggled with my creativity, my life, and myself as I found myself lost in the grips of addiction and dealing with my own darkness. I’d go through periods where I’d create these beautiful things and then I wouldn’t touch anything creative for a while, sometimes weeks, sometimes months. I’d have that desire to create, that wanting to so badly, but I wouldn’t allow myself to. Only by the grace of my Creator, I walked out the other side of that self constructed forest of darkness and began to heal. An amazing process of unpeeling the layers of garbage from my soul, releasing, letting go, self analyzing, and discovering who I really am. The past 22 months have been the most incredible experience for me and I am beyond grateful. I continue to do the work and life continues to get better and better. After doing all of that work, imagine my surprise when I found myself struggling again with my creativity. In a final moment of frustration I realized that if I was frustrated, that meant I was trying to figure it out instead of letting it flow and at that moment I surrendered it to my Creator and the Universe and asked, “Show me what I’m missing please?” My prayers were answered when, through a string of thoughts and events, I realized that I was still trying to fit being an artist into a box labeled “socially acceptable” without even realizing I was doing it. The struggle was caused by those conflicting parts of me, the one that knew I was supposed to be creating, and the one that was trying to be an artist that everyone would accept. Craziness I know. I let go of all of those thoughts and made a conscious decision to be a professional artist and to decide for myself what that meant because I could really care less about being “socially acceptable.” I was no longer willing to let others define who I was, tell me what I should or shouldn’t be, what I could or couldn’t do.
Within a week or so of making that decision, samantha kira harding, also known as journal girl, posted on her facebook page that she was starting a 52 paintings in 52 weeks challenge and if anyone wanted to join to email her. I stopped in my tracks and gave it some thought. I loved using paint in my work, love the smell of paint, the feel of it all over my fingers and hands, but was I a painter? I was scared but I decided to go for it because that’s what professional artists do, they challenge themselves. I am so grateful she did that because I have fallen in love with painting. Actually, I am in love with all of the creative mediums I dabble in but still, loving the painting process! It’s my job to show up in life and with my creativity and allow Divine Inspiration to flow from me and that what I am doing, to the best of my abilities. I’ve surprised myself for sure! The paintings that I have finished, and even the ones in progress, are all very different as I’m finding my style and niche within it. I’m so glad that I decided to join that group regardless of the fear I felt because it’s so much fun and I’m learning so much about painting and about myself as an artist.
As I’ve been painting I’ve also been thinking a lot about inspiring people, as well as about being inspired. There are so many artists that inspire me: samantha kira harding, donna downey, suzi blu, kelly rae roberts, and pam carriker, just to name a few. And I realized that I can’t inspire people if nobody knows I exist. To inspire people I need to step past the fear and put it all out there, share my art and my journey, do what I love and my Creator will take care of the rest. So I set up the blog and then I let it sit for a couple of weeks. I admit, I allowed fear to get the best of me and I avoided it like the plague. Yesterday I was reading samantha kira harding’s blog (she really is amazing so if you get a chance, go check her out) and she wrote something about us getting up and doing it. It inspired me and I realized that I needed to get up, swallow my fear and trust the Inner Guidance I’ve gotten that this blog is my next step and JUST DO IT. So that’s what I’m doing. I live in a world of possibilities. Kelly Rae Roberts has on her website that she is a “possibilitarian” and I absolutely love that phrase! I believe in possibilities, I believe in living our dreams, pulling them from that world of visualization and making them our reality. I believe that I am a Divine Creation and that my Creator and the Universe fully support me in my dreams, they work through me. So if I believe that then I need to have faith and take the steps. So here I go, embarking on this creative artistic journey of figuring out where I want to go artistically and who I am as an artist. I’m scared and excited about this next phase of my life. It’s all about the journey, it’s all about the process, peeling back the layers, adding more, having faith and just doing it. I hope you’ll join me on this journey and I hope I can give back to at least one person what was so freely given to me: inspiration.
No comments:
Post a Comment