Contemplations on a Beach Vacation

This was written Dec 16 before I left for a week at the Outer Banks, NC.

I'm going to the Beach Sunday.  My soul is already there.  I've already slowed my senses down to take in the vast nothingness of the waves and water and sand and sky.  I want to take my camera and paints and pads and pens and I don't want to take anything. I want hours of nothingness, staring into the repetitive roll of wave after wave assuring me that my life is not my own - I came from the stars and will return there.  Meanwhile I have choice and love and patience to explore. I  have my senses to show me the creativity of the Universe.  I hesitate to mention God, but I believe in God.  I believe in a God who is my best friend, my closest confident, my greatest comfort, my biggest cheerleader, my adviser and quiet witness to all that I do and all that I am.  He is the parent I've longed for and have always had within me.  Even as a child, I felt cradled by his presence, never alone and scared - alone and anxious, unsure what to do or how to handle a given situation, but solidly knowing I am not alone.  When I listen, God is immediately there for me, telling me what I need to know or what to do next.  I draw my inspiration from listening to God.  I follow leadings from God and, on perfect days, I allow myself to open up to God's creativity and channel that.  My best art comes directly from God.  My desire to change women's body consciousness comes from God.  My blessings come from God.  And I also believe my challenges come from God, giving me opportunities to love more deeply and with greater awareness of the frailty of our humanity.

I often wish I cold overcome my humanity and embody more God-like qualities.  I wish I had an open door forgiveness policy.  I wish I could immediately glean the lessons being offered in challenging situations.  I wish my heart were as big as God's.  I wish I could incorporate God-consciousness into everything I do, say, think or feel.

That is why I am going to the beach on Sunday - to be a hermit, away from the pulls of my human life, to a place where I can more easily focus on what really matters to me.  I want to drop everything and become conscious of my breath, of the pull of my eyelids towards sleep, of the yearnings of my body for specific nutrients, of my soul for the roar of the ocean, the moon rising over the water, the crash of the surf as it and I play tag, me screeching as it gets me, it roaring in fake scariness as it plunges towards me then just as quickly pulls away.

I breathe deeply, settling into the slow goodness of it all.

Talk20

Thanks so much to everyone who came to Talk20 last night at 1708 gallery!  I had a great time, and I loved seeing each and every one of you there, especially if I knew you were there ; ) !

We had tons of people there - it was standing room only - maybe 175 people.  There were 8 artists who spoke for about 4 1/2 minutes each then took time to answer questions if there were any.  It was fascinating hearing what each artist/designer was working on and what he/she was thinking during the process.  People are doing such cool stuff.  Brian Korte showed us the picture he made out of Legos which is now in the Guiness Book of World Records!  Tiffany Glass talked about geocaching "real small art" all around Richmond and about giving away small canvases as a way to make someone's day.  Shelia Gray paints bodies and creates costumes just for the heck of it, and gardens and house and pet sits out of the goodness of her heart.  Gordon Stettinius has done a series of photographs of himself with all different kinds of hair and in different styles of dress.  They are fascinating!  It's hard to recognize him in all of them.  There were two designers there who talked about their process of figuring out how to decorate a building - there's so much more thought that goes into it than I ever knew.  And an artist who does prints of maps of places friends and family live.  All so interesting! 

As the fourth presenter, I spoke about my fascination with the human form for the last ten years, beginning with pregnant nudes, continuing on to scars, then naked men, and now the female form.  I showed primarily pictures from this new series and talked about how blessed I am by my models and their generosity in allowing me to paint them, their authenticity, their vulnerability, and their power and grace.  Slash Coleman at the end asked me a question I'm so grateful for.  He asked what the experience tends to be like for the models.  I answered that in many cases it has brought about healing, helping the models feel more comfortable in their own skin and helping them see how beautiful they truly are.  I was so glad to be able to bring that into the talk.  That, the healing, is the primary reason I do this work.  I would so love it if my work influenced people to think about their common perceptions of the body and to perhaps consider if they are logical/reasonable/rational or not.

Why do we believe that it's not OK to be naked?  When do we start to feel ashamed of or embarassed by our bodies?  What causes that to happen?  Society has very, very strong messages about being naked and about how the body should look.  What makes us believe those messages?  When do we start to take them on?  What can we do about it?

I think becoming aware of the messages is the first step.  I hope that when people look at my art, they will begin to think about the body.  Perhaps they will feel uncomfortable.  I'm OK with that.  Maybe they'll go a little bit deeper and start to ask themselves what is wrong with the painting?  Why are they uncomfortable?  What seems so wrong about it?  There is so much to be learned from the questions.

I have a student who thinks I'm OK with all this weirdness because I lived in Europe.  That may have contributed to my acceptance that I have a body, and it's not perfect, and that's OK.  But I think what has brought me to this place is rather that I have continued to paint the nude and to look at all these bodies.  How could I help but recognize the vulnerability and humanity of each and every person - each person is doing her best to be her best self, to live a good life, to get along in the world with as little pain as possible.  I treasure their trust and authenticity and openness with me.  I find each woman I've painted to be indescribably beautiful and powerful.  It's not about their bodies.  It's about their souls.  It's really the essence I try to paint, but I have to describe it using paint and by re-creating an image of their body surrounded by their skin.  But hopefully it's the soul that shines though.  And those are sublime.

Anne Truitt, Part II

Yesterday I wrote about the sculptor Anne Truitt and included some of her quotes which have inspired me.  Here are more of them...   

  "I am human; nothing human is alien to me. I was fired by this concept: the entire range of human experience is available to every single human being.

     "What [this] added up to for me was a decision to try to experience as much as I could with as open a mind as I could, in the hope that if I did so my desire to 'know God,' to understand 'the meaning of life,' might perhaps come to some result. At the least, I would undertake to lead a life as properly aligned as I could make it."

     When I go into the studio, or when I go to tutor, I try to remember to say a prayer to ask God to help me channel him in everything I say and do.  I want my artwork to be a direct expression of his love and creativity.  I want the words that come out of my mouth when I teach to be directly from him and ones that will help my students learn exactly what is right for them at that given moment.  I do my best teaching, my best painting, and my best partnering when I remember to get out of the way.

     "I walk around these sculptures (in her retrospective exhibit in 1991) in my mind and consider their existence. They look so objective. Yet each one sprang from the very core of my subjectivity. I see in them no trace of the hours and hours of intense labor by way of which they were made. People sometimes ask me if I feel as if my sculptures were my children. I do not. The love I feel for my children is unique in my experience. Nothing is comparable. But it occurs to me this morning that they too are transformations of secret, silent resources similar to those out of which these sculptures emerged." Looking at her sculptures, a person might think they were completely analytical pieces, devoid of feelings because they are so smooth and pure. I am fascinated to learn how much intensity is behind them. I have a feeling that's true of most artist's work - no matter how simple they look, they most likely contain all the intensity the artist could hold at the time. When I paint, sometimes the intensity comes through very clearly, like Dancing Woman. I was feeling a lot of feelings when I painted the final layer of it, and I think that is visible on the canvas. Other pieces have just as much intensity, but it is quieter and isn't as obvious.

     I love what she writes about teaching. She was a University professor for many years. "My faith in this way of teaching has grown over the years. I find that only honesty serves. I can have no hidden agenda, no inordinate urge to impose my influence. I must be open myself if I am to suggest that students open themselves to themselves. And I must use my highest energies.

     "...Teaching is an anxious business. A teacher has such power to damage, and the damage can be so subtle. It is a moral discipline to keep a watch on invidious motivations. On pride, for example, for just in the nature of the relationship between teacher and pupil, the teacher knows more and can dominate, to the detriment of a student's self-respect. A teacher's cruelty - not too strong a word - can be as unconscious as that inflicted by insensitive parents.

     "The finest teaching touches in a student a spring neither teacher nor student could possibly have preconceived. The Latin root of the word 'education' is educere, to lead forth. Teaching may elicit self-knowledge but unless it also leads students into an ever-broadening view of art and life, self-knowledge results only in self-expression."
     When I teach, I do my best to help students discover who they are. I feel like they know best what they need to express. My job is to ask the right questions or to give the right prompts then to listen then to get out of the way so they express what they've discovered. It's a glorious process!