Miss Echo, Golden Doodle Pet Portrait Commission
The joy and heartbreak of completing a painting…
Completing a painting is a joy and a heartbreak for me. I don’t have children but I imagine the feeling is similar to raising a child hoping you’ve done your best and letting him/her go out into the world, hoping and praying she/he will be loved and appreciated as much as they are by you.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to explain where I go to mentally, emotionally and spiritually when I paint, but it’s a place and a high that can be likened to runner’s high, yoga, dancing, meditating, great music, sex, drugs, a kiss, a sunrise and watching hummingbirds come to the feeder on the other side of the glass patio sliding doors of my small but well-lit art studio surrounded by wildlife and nature. lol. 🙂 As I’m writing this, two of them came to the feeder together for the first time since I moved in. For me, being an artist feels like the equivalent of falling in love over and over and saying goodbye upon completion of each piece, knowing it will soon be in the hands of another who will hopefully love and care for it. (Fortunately, I’m very lucky to have only had incredible art lovers purchase my work who support me to the ends of the earth – thank you if you’re reading this – Love and Light.)
Creating art is a mix of the subconcious – the darkest and lightest hopefully ( makes art more interesting), dreams, pain, memories, accomplishments, failures, interest, curiosity, love and everything in between that encompasses the soul. Then at some point amidst this mix, an extra little bit of magic that only gets let in when you’re really in the zone will do its work to help send the painting out to its new home.
Of course, this happens to everyone, not only with art. Getting to that point can be easy when you’re completely open to it but oftentimes, it’s a challenge and the discipline, practice, having down days and procrastination are things that can get in the way – I speak from experience on this – FOR YEARS since I started painting. THERE is easy, but without the process, none of it exists. God IS in the details including all the mistakes and I find the magic happens when I don’t expect it and when I don’t plan. I ALWAYS plan out paintings to some degree and no matter what I think it’ll look like, no matter how many hours I paint, re-paint, paint over, overdo, underdo, my best ones happen when I stop trying to stay fixed on what I thought it was going to look like and follow that thing that I can’t put my finger on – not sure most can. It’s a lot like life I feel like and as years go by and as the world seems to get crazier, this place that I’m grateful to access whenever I need – keeps my soul alive and my heart happy. I wish more people would do more of what they enjoy – there’s way too much suffering in the world. Would you rather suffer by not doing what you love or give back by expressing your love doing what you enjoy? xoxo.
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