INTENTION….

Okay, I am not even going to apologize for not posting last week, you might say that Life had other plans for me and what amazing plans they were. I spent Saturday painting with Shiloh Sofia McCloud in her “Visionary Women – a Modern Day Vision Quest” class at the Cosmic Cowgirls University in Healdsburg, CA. I can honestly say that I will never be the same as a woman, a person or an artist. That is how powerful my experience was the first day, and the class is three months long!

As most of you know, am new to blogging, and writing in general, so my approach to this whole thing has been very seat of the pants. Just start somewhere and keep going. Now that I have been going for a few weeks, I’ve been thinking that I would like to balance the nuts and bolts of the art business with more about the heart and my emotional/spiritual journey as an artist. Sure, it is important to know about the business of art, and I hope to share lots of information that will make navigating the whole process of getting your work out there much easier. But what is it really all about? For me the answer is not the money or the prestige, it is a desire to live life on my own terms while honoring my most precious gifts. And that is where INTENTION comes in.

For the first few years of painting I readily surrendered to my higher power when I painted and I was always surprised. I couldn’t believe people were buying my paintings and it was fun! After a few years though, I found that I had woven a lot of other people into my story. I felt a responsibility to continue painting and making my art available to my galleries. This created a subtle but powerful shift in my painting and my approach to being an artist. I was making money at it but I had to constantly work at coming up with new imagery. It was my job now and I was committed. I couldn’t just decide that I wasn’t going to be a painter anymore without affecting a lot of other people. Not what I expected….

So I found myself painting pretty pictures that were well received but lacked the raw beauty and power of my earlier work. Part of it was my growing ability to render imagery at choice and part of it was my loss of intention. The spiritual practice of surrendering myself to the painting, the intention set before each painting, the listening to my higher power had been replaced by my idea that just showing up was enough. I wasn’t asking for guidance anymore, I was busily doing my job. And I began to feel dissatisfied and unsure of where I was going with the whole “I’m a painter” thing.

What I want to share with you today is this: You, like myself, will undoubtedly reach a place in your artist’s journey where you will need to make choices. It is so easy for artists, especially the ones that have found a market for their work, to lose that deeper connection with their purpose. I call it “finding your winning formula”. And this is where the choices come in. Do you make brightly colored coffee cups for years because that is what you become known for and they sell like hot cakes? Or do you chose to keep on walking just to find out what might be further down the path? For me, it is essential that my paintings express my intention and my personal spiritual journey and when I forget this, my paintings change.

So who are you and why do you create art?  This is the question I ask – myself – you – and anyone who spends the days of their lives working as an artist. The answer is different, and right, for each individual artist. Whatever form of creative self expression you chose, do it on purpose with clear intention and your art will have integrity. I believe that it is this integrity, no matter whether it is a lovely floral, or a political statement rendered in stone, that gives your art the ability to resonate and connect with others. And when you know this, and honor this gift you have, you are doing more than just showing up, you are embracing your artist's life fully.

Here’s a new painting that I started over the weekend. She is far from being finished, but I can tell you that she is not going to be another pretty painting! She has intentions of her own.

New Beginnings....

Namaste,
Yarrow

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