i could talk about 2009 so many different ways...part of me is astounded that it has been a year since my amazing surprise party 20 days before the big day and the other part of me feels like a lifetime has gone by in these last 365 days...both the not good and good of this year have been pretty heavy and there is just so much there...frankly i am relieved to welcome 2010 if for no other reason than to start fresh and breathe a little...i am actually super psyched to turn 30 oddly enough... something about it just seems like a great idea...i don't think i am very good at being twenty something anymore so i guess it is time...anyway...i feel like a year that has been so much deserves some attention but at the same time i feel a desperate need to look ahead right now and not back...so this is kind of a slippery slope for me...but before i can go forward i did have to go back to that party this time last year...to something about 2009 that is going to be really important in 2010and probably every year after...the night i first put paint to canvas.
god told me to paint around the time he told me about what i could do with dance if i wanted to...and about the time he told me i could go to haiti...i don't have a lot of fears...but blank canvas scared me...or at least intimidated me...
i am the kind of girl who loves to take whatever junk is already laying around and fix up a room but has no ability for interior design when the palette is mine to create...i could color inside or outside the lines with great flare but something about the openness and freedom of new white canvas stopped me short. but the thing in me is a new thing...not like anything i am going to find in the world already...and if i want to see it happen i am going to have to start drawing my own lines to be colored in and around.
and so god said to paint.
that was at the beginning of last year. and some of the beautiful people i am so blessed to know surrounded me one night in early january with supplies, and snacks, and songs, and love and we all embraced the canvas together. we shared palettes and pages and our faces and hair even became each other's canvases before the night was over. it was a glorious introduction to the new thing, this new season, and this new way of life. it has been freeing, it has been messy, and it has forever changed me. it seemed appropriate that i was painting again on that day this year...a much quieter night but as we poured ourselves anew onto last year's canvases a lot came to mind about what painting teaches me everytime i pick up a palet knife...so here is 2009 from the angle of the easel...
anything important to you requires space...there should be spaces in your space for the things you love...spaces to paint...to dance...to play
there are no rules in art...but just like everywhere else...there are consequences
you can go too far...the hardest thing to do is stop painting and let it dry a while but if you don't you end up with busy, blurry, or brown...
you can always paint over it....but you can't take it back...and that isn't the same thing...whether it is hidden completely or becomes part of a new picture you will know what is under there...
if you are afraid to spill you won't paint to the edges...
your favorite jeans can be your paint jeans too...or not...either way is fine
creating paintings is like creating dances...songs...lives...sometimes it is hard to tell what it is going to be until it is done...
you can try to wait to clarify your vision but often if you will just start the vision makes itself real...
art is messy...but the mess is part of the beauty...and the most authentic things in this world both on and off the page are usually more messy than not
as i move into a new year, a new semester, and a new decade of life...i am looking at a lot of fresh spaces waiting for me to bring color to...i am also holding more than one old canvases to be revived with new strokes...
im moving to a new house when i get back to new hampshire and in addition to a great location, and a great roomate, i will have a great space for painting...and i am really looking forward to filling it...and all that could come out of that...
PAINT this year...i dare you!
