Sharika Roland

To fly you have to do three things: Not be aware of yourself, not think too much, and project where you want to go.

Sounds easy and doable and fun. But it is not easy. First of all you have to not be aware of yourself. Try doing that for 10 minutes let alone 4 hours. Your mind starts going and you start over-thinking and looking for ways to use what you knew before to make it made sense. It does not have to make sense till it is over. As soon as you start thinking you are seeing where this new idea is going you kill it.

I am talking about painting. But It pretty much works for everything. New ideas are not you. they are not from you they are only going through you for a few minutes. You have to capture them and not try and control them. I am talking again about painting but I know it works for everything. If I get a painting done really really fast then it really should be about 10 times as much money as the usual ones. Because it is done in a selfless, let it be state of being that is hard to get into.

That is why I say some of my works are masterpieces. There was a magic moment when there was nothing stopping it from being born. I was not in the way. So it is not bragging to say you did a masterpiece. It is the most humble thing you can say because it was done without you.

A bold line in a painting is a confident line! It is not a well-thought-out, calculated line. It is not schooled and hammered in. It is boldness that you can feel.

To get a bold line you have to give in to what it wants not what you want. You have to trust that you won’t wreck the painting and if you do it will be for the better. A bold line is a bold life and it is done fast. But not the usual fast. It is a plunge into the realm of no fear.

Everything in life is like that line on a canvas.  You have to just go and trust that you will not kill anything that was worth keeping. I am speaking on a lot of levels now. Artists know what I mean. because they live there and have experienced it.

Today, live with boldness anywhere you can and you will find that you can find it in a lot more places than you  thought.

I do paintings in layers. Without my layers there isn’t much there. What are the layers.  Not just a bunch of paint I smushed on there for effect. They are paintings that for one reason or another were not worthy enough to stay alive. I paint over them. If I can stand to do it I figure they must not be good enough.

The only problem with that is I kill a lot of good paintings and it leaves me sick that I made such a rash decision. So the underpainting might be another really good one that got killed. The many lives of my girls can be seen if you look just under the surface. I think it makes them way more interesting to look at.

Everything you did yesterday makes today what it is. and everything you do today makes tomorrow what it is.

True or false?

false

You can turn at any point and go an entirely different direction. No matter what happens today does not have wreck tomorrow. You just don’t know what is around the corner in the area of possibilities.

When I lived in San Francisco, I found that nothing was permanent. What I learned was no matter how hard one thing was it was not the way it was always going to be. If you keep that in the forefront of your mind you will not despair and you will appreciate it when things are going good. Life lived striving for the best in every situation will be most enjoyable and wonderful and you don’t need to worry about tomorrow.

I have been hearing a lot about doom and horrific economic upheaval ahead of us, Well that may be true but in the middle of the new thing will be a new road we did not see before and I am sure that all things will work for good for those that trust in the Lord. that is the key.

The thing that is sort of hard is selling a painting that has not been around very long. Once I just finished a painting and the gallery owner came to my house and took and and sold it practically the next day. I never even got a picture of her and I wish I had one. That was back in the day of having to take a picture and wait for it to come back from the photographer to see it. Now we can get in image immediately.

I miss the one that got away as it is foggy in my brain after all these years. Everything I paint now is for someone else. David Hockney said that it was sort of sad to not get to be around his new work at all but always it goes out the door.

Your children are always leaving before you can be with them awhile. But that is the cost. They have to leave and make room for more. Take another little piece of my heart now baby.