Sharika Roland

What do I want to say? facts… too boring and totally not important here. You want to know the spirit and the secret place all this paint flew from. You want to know an invisible thing put into words. These words will have to do , but think of them as portals to a new place. The truth is the feelings don’t come out till after the painting is done. While I am doing it I have no feeling that I can say. So I don’t start with a feeling.

the only exception is the grief paintings when my Dad died but usually there is no feeling. there also is no idea.

I enter the painting process the same way you do. Discover it as it goes. I just take all the paint out that makes me sick and leave the rest. When it is done I know its done and no more can be done or it will be ruined. Thats when I stop. Art is knowing when to stop.

The images I do are not anything about women or tables or chairs or anything that you look at. I really can’t draw to save my life and that in itself makes my art the way it is.

My subjects though on the whole , are only the mannequin from which the real art hangs.

I think people act one way with people they don’t know and then another way with people they are super close to. There is a third group of people that are even closer , and that is people who do your same work.

Being with artists is the most euphoric experience because we have this big huge thing in common. We have this life force in common and this way of thinking that is different from other relationships.

I wonder if anyone has looked at artists’ minds in an X-ray and seen a common thing there. Maybe one part of our brain is bigger than other people or maybe one part is missing.

All I know is that being with a group of them is like breathing pure mountain air without the climb.

I was reading that it is healthy to be with other artists so we could spark each other. I think it might be more than that, People need to be by each other for more than that.

Its more than just getting ideas. Its more like getting validated that no you aren’t crazy and yes you have value and you are important. We are so in our own worlds a lot of the time that it is easy to feel like an alien.

Art groups are so good for that and most artists are not even in one, like me I’m not right now and I sure would love to be. If you stay alone too long you automatically go crazy and we wouldn’t want that.

Poems are not made of words

Words are for talking and reading a book

Poems are made from spices and groans,

They are made from Balloons.

You can Chew them and spit them out, they are like gravel sometimes,

Poems are perfume destined to be poured out onto tired feet,

They are my best chapel

You are not locked out but locked in

And the place you are in is divine.

I like to go pray in the Poem Chapel once a day

Just to remember the good and forget the bad.

I am safe in the Chapel where walls are made of sighs

and the pews are made of laps.

I entered the Washington State Fair art contest . Its been 20 years since I’ve entered an art show but for some reason thought I would give it a go.

The opening for the show was Friday. There were so many people there you would think it was a New York opening. The reason for that kind of turn out was the amount of art displayed. There must have been 700 works of art there.

The quality of some of the paintings and sculptures were shocking. Apparently there is a ton of talent in Washington State. It was hard to see some of the work as real estate was valuable there. Every square inch had art. Some of the artists I knew but there were many that I was pleased to find out about .

I think that about million people go see this show so that is why so many “bring it” when they enter this contest.

The most important thing about his show is the chance to see the soul of Washington. It really is quite beautiful and even at times astonishing.

Once when I was in France, in the south of France in a small village, I met a woman

She asked me if I was Sharika Roland and I said yes and she said she bought one of my painting in Seattle, while she was on a business trip. She lived in California. So I am in a small village in France and I meet one of my patrons.

Another time I had a couch for sale on Craigslist and the woman who came to buy it said she also was one of my patrons from the gallery in Seattle and she saw one of my paintings in the background of the couch ad and knew it was me.

How can this happen? What are the odds? Are there any odds or it is preordained.

That is the question. These are just two stories but there are more. So does my wish of meeting my patrons come about because of wild chance or something else?

Are we destined to meet each other?? I hope so because that is my wish of wishes to meet all my patrons in person. I did the painting for them alone even though I did not know them. It is only right that I meet them. The perfect circle of life.

Because of the likelihood that these occurrences were raw chance to me is astronomically impossible. I think it was meant to be and that is the most grounded you can be. Things are unfolding as they should.