Sharika Roland

the power of saying no to things you want to do but are not in your mission statement is equal to the time you have to do the things that are on your mission statement. This may seem like an obvious thing but when you actually break it down it is freedom to fly. Each time you say no to something that would really be a diversion you give importance to your life mission statement.
Making it a habit to use every minute to fullfill what you were put on earth to do is not tiresome. It will fill you with more energy than you know what to do with. It is the diversions that lead to monotony. If you get off work and are really tired and want to “Veg out”, you will be even more tired. It is the opposite of what you think. We relax by doing what gives us energy.

There was a tee shirt I saw in the eighties that said “Art is knowing when to stop. ” That is so true. How many paintings have I taken it just a tad too far and then lost the quality I was looking for all day. And once you have lost it, it is impossible to find it again just the way it was.

If a painting paints itself quickly and is perfect and mind blowing and I can’ t believe it, the best thing to do is walk away from it . Do not look at it again and think well maybe just one more thing.  Leave it be .

That painting will be better than anything you have struggled over for days. Tomorrow I will do nine paintings at once. That way I won’t have time to ruin them. I will tell you the result of no time to get me involved. They will have to paint themselves without any help from  me.

People often ask me why I only paint women.
Well why does anybody paint anything. It is compelling to me and never gets old but only gets more interesting the more I paint them. Women have everything I love. They are curvy and that curve is repeated all over their face and body. I am painting that curve over and over and I also include it in the background over and over in all my work.
I am in love with that simple curve. Men have a different curve. They are more angular and well masculine.
You should paint what you see that maybe nobody else sees and if you look you will find the simple curve that compels me to work all day. Look for the curve in everything I do.

I love the end of the year. It is a relief to get to the end and officially finish. It is only a day like any other but the psychological necessity of it is real.

Everybody can do hard things in small amounts and everybody needs hope that the next thing will be easier. I know that people are talking about the end of the recession and we need to. If the reality was that it was going to last 5 more years everybody would be very scared. I think it will last that much longer but we will find new ways to get around it.  I think it is a blessing to go through slower times because it makes us look for new and wonderful things.

It is hard to demand that creative flow come out on demand. I have found that one way to overcome this unfortunate plight is to start running on the treadmill and think about what you want to do. The repetition of pounding away on the machine will lull you into a nice state of concentration and relaxation so that you can just think better. It is sort of the Tom Sawyer , whitewash the fence plan. Doing the same thing over and over will take you focus off your deadline.  Do the next step. That is all you need to do in every creative process. Just do the next thing and that thing will tell you what the next thing will be.

I remember a line in Gertrude Stein’s ‘How Written is Written’:    “When you are not aware of yourself but only the thing you are doing then you are really doing it. ”

Neurons in the brain – illustration.  Unmodified original here
Credit: Benedict Campbell. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk