Creating is like birthing a baby....

For those who think art comes easily.... watch this movie.

Art is not created in a vacuum. It comes from inspiration.

Once inspiration hits, art still must be birthed through the spirit and into the flesh. This can be a difficult process given to great sweat and pain. Sweat to release the soul to fly and pain in the birthing process.

When you create, do not give up too quickly, you may be on the verge of a great work! Push through the process, with patience and determination. If it's not coming together, work it from another angle. Be open to the process of change understanding that your creation may go in a different direction than originally planned.

Glean ideas from other sources. Look at Pinterest.... loads of ideas there for inspiration or check out artist a day on google. Or go to an art's festival as I did today! Talk to the artists and get to know them a bit.

It takes time to build creativity. Just when I think I'm proud of my work, I realize I have so much further to go to release inhibitions and soar. Even the classic painters of old struggled! Accept the struggle as part of the process... it's good for your art and your soul!

Part 2: Two Hearts from the Same Soul, Some Frida Art and Links

If you missed the posting before this, you may want to read that first on the relationship between Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, two artists drawn together. Here are a few of Frida Kahlo's paintings.

If you are an artist or a photographer the study of Frida's work can help you understand how to bring more of your soul into your work. Perhaps you would like to do a series of self-portraits that reveal different aspects of your struggles or joys. An exercise such as this will bring a new depth to your art and portraiture and can be quite revealing. There are some links below also you can study her more in-depth.













Wikipedia on Frida

Frida Kahlo Website

PBS Study on Frida, looks at some of her paintings and the meaning behind them. 

For more study there are many great books out on her.

Amazon

Two Hearts of the Same Soul.

Just as yesterday was about True Love's Kiss, today is about True Love's Fist - yes, the other side of two hearts beating together.

I spend a great deal of time studying artists and their muses.  Artists seem to be drawn to each other in unmistakably passionate and sometimes destructive ways and I'm fascinated by their personal dynamics.

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are perfect examples. Frida is that uni-browed woman who painted self-portraits with the monkey's on her shoulders that you find in Mexican towns and stores. She was an incredible artist, literally pouring her pain and her feelings figuratively into her work. Her husband Diego, quite a few years her senior, was a cubist and muralist in Mexico and a communist supporter. If you haven't studied them, I would recommend it. Start with the movie Frida. This colorful, artistic production is fascinating to watch and gives you a peek into the lives and relationship issues of both Frida and Diego. I teach about Frida in my week long classes because in viewing her work we can learn a great deal about putting one's soul into one's art.

Here's a clip of the real Frida and Diego:

Can you feel the love... the connection?  Frida and Diego shared a love of painting and had a deep respect for each one's artistic abilities. Their passionate personalities both fueled their love and their destruction. Their marriage was riddled with many infidelities and violent fights. Diego even slept with Frida's sister!  The couple divorced and eventually remarried, living together till Frida's youthful death.  For whatever reason they could not stay away from each other. I like to think it's because they were true soul mates to the core but their social skills were in dire need of an upgrade.

Here's a compilation of scenes from the movie that show the passionate and sometimes crazy nature of their love.

Frida and Diego teach us how fragile relationships can be. Certainly it is a lesson for those of us who tend toward the "passionate" side of things to learn to listen and be kind to those we love. They remind us to treat our loved ones with respect because as deep as love is, it can be destroyed by the things that we do or neglect to do. Spend some good quality time with those you love. Don't take them for granted, people need to feel cherished. Listen, hug, kiss, squeeze and love on them today. It's good for the soul!

Get Your Passion On!

Passion should overwhelm reason time and again. (Alvaro Castagnet)


What a mistake to suppose that the passions are strongest in youth! The passions are not stronger, but the control over them is weaker! They are more easily excited, they are more violent and apparent; but they have less energy, less durability, less intense and concentrated power than in maturer life. (Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton)


Are you passionate? Do you try to squeeze the most out of every minute of every day, savoring life to the fullest? Do you laugh loudly, cry intensely, express yourself strongly, love deeply, hate vehemently and breath every breath with gratitude?


Passion, zeal, spirit, soul..... the joy of getting the most out of life. It's a great thing!


Life is a cacophony of experiences, some good, some bad. We all start out with raw grit passion in our childhood. We cry loudly when our diapers are soiled or we feel hunger. As children we approach life with curiosity and boldness. Soon we find out that feeling our emotions intensely and expressing them gets us in trouble with those whose lives we have inconvenienced. Throughout life, when painful experiences come our way the feelings of sorrow can be too great to handle so we mask them with "soothers" such as TV and other forms of entertainment, drinking, food, etc.  Even our ecstasy and joy need to be masked or we are labeled as annoying or loud. It doesn't take long before we go through life like a zombie dialing down all our emotions to a socially acceptable level. You can check your own zombie rating with one simple test; how do you feel about teenagers? Nuff said...


As a creative, it is important to experience passion so that you can bring it to your creations. If you do not feel your feelings, how can you bring them into your art? If you are out of touch with your soul, it's very hard to put "soul" in your work. Art can become boring and lackluster without an honest expression of life.


How do you put the passion back in your life? Remember the feeling that you had when you first fell in love? The grass was more green, the sky was more blue and there was a bounce in your step that you could not explain. Puppies were cuter, food tasted better and optimism was your best friend. This is the feeling that you want to tap in to.


We need to get this passion back in our lives. If you have the chance, get that love moving in the right direction. Bad relationships zap energy, good relationships heal. Unfortunately life is not a romance novel for most people so there have to be other ways to get your passion on. 


For starters, do something different with your day. Sit in a different chair, listen to different kind of music, etc. Do anything to get out of your rut.


The truth is that puppies are STILL cute. Grass is STILL green. All the things you noticed in your ecstatic love state are still all true, you just paid more attention to them then because YOU WERE HAPPY! You were viewing the world in a very positive way with intrigue and pleasure. Try to get back there with your thankfulness radar. Focus on all the good things. I mean REALLY focus on them.


Engage in something today fully. Let me give you an example. I went to the beach a few days ago. I sat in my chair and read for a while feeling the breeze in my hair and the sun on my back. Soon I realized that I was wasting my beach time because I can read at home too.  I got up out of my chair and walked around a bit, gathering shells and feeling the wet sand under my feet. Heading back to my chair I had a "rethink" and sat right in the sand, running my hand on the surface of the ground, watching the patterns. I sifted the sand through my fingers, watching it fall to the ground. I picked up shells and studied them, making lines. Then right on the deserted beach, I laid down making angel wings in the sand. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of the surf pounding the beach.  If the air wasn't so brisk, I could have taken it one step further and gone into the water. This was the act of really experiencing the beach. I embraced the fullness of the moment and the environment.


What good is an experience if we do not do justice to it? Will we go through life passively only half noticing all the miracles that lay before our eyes? We need to ignite passion again for all that life has to offer. Passion is the very expression of love. Lukewarm love is worthless. Love should be real and full and encompass all areas of your day and your experiences. Shower your family with love today! Love on your pets! Love your food... enjoy every bite! Love the moments between the beating of your heart... your travels... your adventures... your cooking ... your cleaning... your chores... your job.... your art process. Get the most out of every experience and throw yourself into it with reckless abandonment! Why hold back? Life is not a dress rehearsal - it's the real deal. Every day that you do not passionately engage in your world is a day of your life wasted! 


So put some passion in your life today... it's good for the soul!

Are you Creative?

"The Issue of talent is the most effective defense against expression. It is also a crippling obstacle when used against you. My experience has repeatedly proven that any person can express himself or herself in an authentic and intriguing way with just about any art form." Shaun McNiff, Trust the Process: An Artist's Guide to Letting Go. 

I went out to dinner the other night with my cousin. We had a marvelous time talking and catching up on life. Whenever we are together we both marvel at our similarities of thought, experiences and interests. She is an incredibly talented artist and we love sharing ideas. At one point in the conversation we got into a little discussion about who has more talent! Each of of insisted that the other was more artistically gifted and we both meant it fervently. 

Some of the most gifted people artistically do not realize the gift that they have been given and struggle with feelings of failure or inadequacy while others who are seemingly less skilled are undaunted by other's opinions and enjoy their creative processes immensely. 

The truth is that we are all in different places in our creative journeys. People vary in their confidence levels and the intent of their art. Some people do art for the sheer pleasure of it while others do it to forge a pathway to existence. Art can be an expression for some and a science for others.

Everyone is creative. In a way we do our creative selves and others a disservice  when we label each other as gifted or not gifted. It is so easy to compare ourselves to others and come up short, often discouraging us from exercising our creative gifts. Others may in turn label us as the "artists" and then not dare venture off on their own journeys in creativity. My sister, living in my shadow, didn't discover her creative gifts until years after she married and moved on with her life. Her creativity came together not only in use of the english language but in beautiful centerpieces, food and greeting cards.

I will say it again because it's THAT important....everybody has creative ability (whether or not they know it). Art is a gift that everyone can partake of. We need to leave judgements aside and express ourselves without fear of not being good enough.

Often when I'm teaching I give the students time to play on their own with poses and lighting for the models. It usually takes a few minutes for people to move on their ideas, partly due to a sense of politeness and I think partly due to a small sense of intimidation. It's so easy to think that others ideas are better than our own. In addition, there is something so personal about creativity... it's like undressing in front of others - it's bearing your soul and it's so painful to put the gift up for scrutiny.

Scrutiny has it's place, in competitions and school. There has to be some measure of excellence as we all need to strive to our highest competence level.

At the same time, art should have the freedom to just be about creating. Creating is really about the process... it's about what it does for us and in us. It's about what we are expressing, how we are getting in touch with our inner core or belief system. Art comes from how we view the world from our own unique standpoint. Sometimes it's just about our need to create something from nothing and the feeling of accomplishment that is gathered from the act.

So, put aside your feelings on how much talent you have and how creative you may or may not be. Create just for the joy of it. Make art because its fun! You don't have to show anyone what you've done unless you really want to. Celebrate art for art's sake in your life today, it's good for the soul!

How to View an Art Exhibit

Yesterday I took my "artist's day" at the MFA and spent some time in the Alex Katz exhibit. Here are some of my favorite images from the show. 

When I view a special exhibit, I go more than once. Since I have a membership to the art museum (money well spent) I can go as often as I like.

The first time I go through an exhibit, I read all the comments on the walls and the paintings and get a feel for who the artist is. Then I take another spin around the room to look more closely.

Here is an example of what to note:

1. Content - people, landscapes, etc. 

         

2. Color and Contrast- is the color bold, subdued, monochromatic. 

3. Relationship of the artist to his subject matter? 

4. Style - contemporary, pop, impressionist, realism, etc

5. What is the artist trying to say through is work?

6. Do I like this artist? How does the work make you feel? (happy, sad, pensive, etc). 

7. If I could choose one image to take home, which would it be and why? 

Now you can take it further and incorporate it into your own work.

1. How does this compare and contrast to my own art?

2. Does the artist use any technic, color, or crop that I may be able to incorporate into my work to make it more effective?

At this point you can purchase the exhibit book or some postcards to take home for further study and reflection. You may also want to google the artist and the exhibit and see what others are saying about the work. 

Take it to the next level.

If you like, you can take your growth to a whole new level by emulating the artist -  copy some of his paintings or make photographs that resemble his images. I suggest this for your own personal growth, not to copy someone's style. Even the great painters of old used to sketch and paint off each other's work for educational purposes. Through this process you will have a deeper appreciation for the skill of the artist and you may develop a new style of your own.

Visit the exhibition as often as you would like. With each time you will take something new back with you and your art appreciation and knowledge will grow.