Category: Creativity

Few birds look as glorious as the peacock. What an outrageously beautiful animal. It is not necessary for them to be so but what a delight it is to see them.

That made me think about living. Living life like a peacock would benefit everyone . Extravagantly generous , spending  out every ounce of life you have been given. I do know people that live this way and they are a major gift to everyone who comes into contact with them. Just being my them gives you strength and hope and ideas and courage.

Everyone has something wonderful and unique to give everybody else.  It is sort of a state of mind. What can I give not how am I going to get what I need mentality. Just changing perspective for a few minutes make you realize  a whole new world out there that is your oyster. You are the pearl.

The significance of the blue butterfly in my latest painting goes back a long way.

When I was a young painter I always wanted to paint things that were what I wanted life to be like. I was not concerned with what I saw so much as what I did  see with my eyes but  what I saw with my heart.

I love those dreams and visions that come from another world. A world without boundaries or limits of what you can do.

The older I get the more I love these things not because  I am not appreciative of reality , but because I know all reality was once an idea. The diaphanous place where all concrete things start.  That is what I like to think about all the time. That is what the blue butterfly is to me. If you have ever seen a blue butterfly in nature then you were surprised I am sure . It almost is shocking to see one. A lovely surprise and wonder and beauty. Flitting by you on a breeze. Like an idea. A wonderful idea.

French Botanicals

Momentum is your best friend when you are doing any project — from weeding the yard to writing a book. I find momentum in different places.

If I get a phone call from the gallery saying they sold a few paintings. voila, momentum. If another artist says they want me to talk to them about their work, momentum. If I finish a painting and it turns out beautiful, momentum.

So fundamentally, anything positive gets me going.

On the other hand. momentum stops when I don’ t have a deadline. If the phone doesn’t ring. Nobody needs me to get that to them right away. People get me from Point A to Point B. I need a job, a place to go, a person to deliver to. I am not an island. Good grief, I am a city and I need my big city to thrive.

You have to know what kind of things make you move. Some people need peace and quiet and nobody calling them. Some thrive on the island. You have to figure out when you work the best.
photo by mikebaird

If you think about something a lot and feel guilty for not doing it, you should do it. If you sigh in your heart about something. you should do it. The leap from Point A to Point B takes total courage. Courage is 100 percent painful and scary and you will want to do anything else in the universe than have courage.

I know there is something in everyone’s life that is a secret thing that you think about but do not do. Why do you think about it? Why have those thoughts at all? Nobody knows them, so who cares? I think I think I think God cares. And if he cares we should care. Nothing is easy.

But here is the ironic thing. Thinking about what you should do and not doing it will torture you, too. So you really can’t get any peace. When you sigh, when I sigh it is one’s spirit trying to get out. I am going to nurture my creativity and feed her till she can get strong enough to get out.

Today is a spacey blog but I think it is not a waste of your time to read it.

The most difficult thing for my husband is to do anything I talk about in my blog. That is because he thinks differently than me. Most creative type books are written by women. The ones that aren’t are totally business related. Go make the company bigger and better. Men need to have a one track goal.

Women, on the other hand, are more likely to pursue the more abstract thoughts of why are we doing what we do.  Men have responsibilities and women have less pressing ones.  It is so hard to see men be in this place of having no time to consider these things. It’s always off to work and go go go come home and crash and do it over the next day.  Everybody only gets a short time to live and it is important to consider what you do in a deep way.

If I had one wish it would be that men could spend one luxurious half hour a day working on these issues. That is why I am doing this blog. It is short and easy and if there is something to glean then please glean it.  The people you love will be directly enriched by anything unique you have to offer them. The people you love are starving for that very part of you that needs to fly.