Well, perhaps.
'Desert,' oil on linen, 48"x 36", 2007
The truth is, I have been: 1) dating somebody really great, who, instead of distracting me from my work with all sorts of useless drama, actually helps me focus; and 2) actually focussing.
'Ring,' oil on linen, 36"x 48", 2007.Usually, I work on one painting at a time, and turn as many of the others toward the wall as possible, so that I am not distracted by them, nor am I painting 'relatively,' but focussing my whole attention on the one in front of me. The idea, for me, is to make certain that every painting stands on its own terms, as powerfully as possible. A few weeks ago I got out all the newest ones I'd done, eight or ten of them, and looked at them all together. And I realized that I was grossly overworking them.
They weren't terrible, but the word that came to mind was turgid. I was trying to pack my Whole Entire Essence into every one of them; I couldn't just put something down and leave it alone. Chris Rywalt visited about that time, and confirmed what I was thinking. He said, "you're not using your lines. Let your hands speak for themselves."
'Heart,' 48"x 36", oil on linen, 2007.So, I decided to Let Go. Let go of trying to state my entire agenda with each painting, and just try one thing; one odd thing, one new thing, one gesture, one concept. Make paintings as postulates, not definitive statements.
'Current,' 36"x 48", oil on linen, 2007.Within a few weeks, I had burned through all my available supplies, and reordered. I also took a few failed canvases off the stretchers, turned them over and painted on the back; when those failed, too, I stripped the stretchers again and recycled them. Lucio Pozo, one of my only good teachers, once told me, "Painters have to have an attitude."
'Meditation,' 48"x 36", oil on linen, 2007.I also realized something else, which oddly helped me come to terms with certain perennial 'career issues,' which have paralyzed me in the past.
We've discussed, ad nauseam, the politics of the Art World. We know all the horrendous odds against getting one of the fifty grants or residencies you've applied for in the last ten years. We've discussed institutional sexism, ageism, cronyism, yadda yadda. But after getting into a rather high-pitched argument last week with a gentleman who turned out to be an art critic, I decided that for me, personally, there's something else going on.
Because my work is emphatically, overtly, primarily spiritual, both in process and content. 'Spiritual' is my 'schtick.' And 'spiritual,' in the Art World, whether it is religious or not, is not only not in style, not trendy, not P.C., but it renders you virtually invisible. It triggers an instantaneous dismissal which occurs below the level of conscious thought. Few art critics, dealers, curators or collectors will go so far as to say, like this fellow did, "I'm not interested in this 'spiritualism' junk." It just doesn't even register.
Having spent plenty of years among the self-styled Intellectual Elite, I am fairly certain that I know where this is coming from. It is a reaction against the perceived hegemony of Christian conservatism, the bigotry which frequently accompanies it, and the anti-scientific literalism of Bible Belt evangelists. The fact that this is a shallow, simplistic, unexamined dismissal of something that is not only integral to the society, culture and psychological makeup of the vast majority of human beings, but which at its root is the most anti-bigotry, pro peace-and-integration philosophy in existence, is never addressed. Spirituality is the ultimate taboo. When I mention it among a group of hip, progressive, cutting-edge radicals, the social effect is precisely the same as if I had mentioned mutual masturbation among transsexual lesbians at a Junior League meeting in South Texas.
We've discussed, ad nauseam, the politics of the Art World. We know all the horrendous odds against getting one of the fifty grants or residencies you've applied for in the last ten years. We've discussed institutional sexism, ageism, cronyism, yadda yadda. But after getting into a rather high-pitched argument last week with a gentleman who turned out to be an art critic, I decided that for me, personally, there's something else going on.
Because my work is emphatically, overtly, primarily spiritual, both in process and content. 'Spiritual' is my 'schtick.' And 'spiritual,' in the Art World, whether it is religious or not, is not only not in style, not trendy, not P.C., but it renders you virtually invisible. It triggers an instantaneous dismissal which occurs below the level of conscious thought. Few art critics, dealers, curators or collectors will go so far as to say, like this fellow did, "I'm not interested in this 'spiritualism' junk." It just doesn't even register.
Having spent plenty of years among the self-styled Intellectual Elite, I am fairly certain that I know where this is coming from. It is a reaction against the perceived hegemony of Christian conservatism, the bigotry which frequently accompanies it, and the anti-scientific literalism of Bible Belt evangelists. The fact that this is a shallow, simplistic, unexamined dismissal of something that is not only integral to the society, culture and psychological makeup of the vast majority of human beings, but which at its root is the most anti-bigotry, pro peace-and-integration philosophy in existence, is never addressed. Spirituality is the ultimate taboo. When I mention it among a group of hip, progressive, cutting-edge radicals, the social effect is precisely the same as if I had mentioned mutual masturbation among transsexual lesbians at a Junior League meeting in South Texas.
'Bridge,' 36"x 48", oil on linen, 2007.
Strangely enough, this realization helped my state of mind immensely. This is probably because I'm emphatically a 'J' on the Meyers-Briggs personality scale; as long as I know what's going on, I'm okay. It is the paranoid feeling of, "You know, I feel like I'm invisible, but that's crazy, there's no reason I should be invisible, I'm confident and smart and articulate, I'm polite, I listen--why would people ignore me? They can't all be spiteful jerks!" that completely confounds me.
So what this means to me, right now, is that I have to make three times the noise and ten times the high-quality work in order to get the same amount of attention that a mediocre artist who pushes all the right P.C. buttons gets. What it means is that I have to work my butt off with no expectations.
'Singularity,' 16"x 12", oil on linen, 2007.
What this doesn't mean is that I will tweak my agenda to accomodate the prevalant cultural gestalt. Being a 'spiritual' artist is not only my vocation, for which I have jettisoned everything approaching security and social approval, but I sincerely believe that grounding in the transcendent is the only way to resolve the myriad miseries and conflicts of this world. I pursue and explore the path toward inner peace in the hope of extending it outward.
I was working on this one until twelve-thirty last night; it's not done yet, but I'm pretty thrilled with it so far.
'Blue Orchid,' 48"x 36", oil on linen, in progress, 2007.
For the young who want to
Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.
Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.
Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don't have a baby,
call you a bum.
The reason people want MFA's,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else's mannerisms,
is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving that you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you're certified a dentist.
The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.
--Marge Pearcy
44 comments:
Brava! Brava! (clapping sound)
Beck
It triggers an instantaneous dismissal which occurs below the level of conscious thought.
Which is bizarre to me, because I find so many of your works to be compelling, enthralling. But then again, who am I after all?
Here I haven't even mounted and framed the other one yet, and I'm tempted to inquire about .jpegs of some of these new ones.
Bridge and Singularity both look GREAT. Exactly the kind of thing I felt you should be doing. Bridge especially.
I think you might want to jettison the titles, but that's just me. They seem superfluous.
I can't wait to see these in person.
Thanks, folks!
D.C., what I suspect is that the dismissal happens before the work is even looked at; the recent Grant Application was turned down on the basis of the statement alone, without visuals.
I may be wrong about this, of course; I don't mean to come off as whiny or blame-y. It's just that Awkward Silence that repeatedly occurs, when I bring up these issues, and feel that this person is thinking, 'o-kay, we'll let that slide, and hope she returns to sanity eventually...'
How did the print come out, BTW? I'm assuming it was okay, if you want more!
Chris, I painted those two really fast. So fast it scared me. I needed to get out of my own way. You'll get to see them on Saturday!
But you're not seriously suggesting that I become one of those perennially 'Untitled' artists, are you?
Aha. I thought the long absence was going to result in some work really worth looking at, and it has. :)
Far be it from me to defend the Art World. But I have a question for you: How is your work received by people you consider to share your unabashed "spiritualness"? (Assuming here that those folks are NOT to be found in the Art World.) Do you specifically bring your work to those people? I'm curious.
Glad you're back!
The trouble, it seems to me, is that anything presented as overtly "spiritual" is automatically assumed to be associated either with evangelical Christians or New Age (which an old friend of mine liked to pronounce to rhyme with "sewage").
The only spirituality allowed in art these days is African. Half a decade ago it was all Jewish mysticism (Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko come to mind).
But I can understand this. I've been in two group shows; the second saw my painting hung across from the autisic kid's. The first was a New Age/Wicca/incense & candles thing, much to my chagrin (also, they hung my painting way up high on the wall, in the dark). The very instant I saw who was at that show, and what other kind of work they'd chosen, I tuned out.
Because those people are really, really annoying.
Now, Serena, Steph, PL, whoever: I know you're different. Mostly. You still have elements from that fringe. And they're not necessarily bad elements. But you've got to know being that kind of person causes a certain reaction. It's not the spirituality per se that's the problem; it's all the baggage that comes with it, all that warmed-over flower child flowing skirts Stevie Nicks folk music armpit hair I gave my love a chicken that had no bone crap that we're all so tired of.
That you're more practical (and shaved) than that is sort of beside the point: You're like a black guy who dresses like a gangsta and then complains when the police hassle him. Dude, it's not because you're black, it's because you're dressing like a criminal.
Now, that all said, I'm absolutely certain there are people like you -- people who are truly serious and not New Agey about spirituality -- out there in the art world. It's just a matter of finding them. But the art world, it's a big place, with all kinds. Two years in and I haven't even set foot in at least half the galleries in Chelsea.
As far as becoming an Untitled person: That's just my personal bias these days. Lately I've been feeling that titles detract from visual work -- they force an interpretation using the left brain, and I prefer art as a right-brain enterprise. Just these days. I used to be all about the titles. So, you know, whatever peels your banana.
I can't believe that New Age has become already become sewage.
So, why is all spirituality in art not viewed as African until proven otherwise? These art people seem to be not only bigotted, but pessimistic and cynical to boot. If I were you, PL, I would order up some new art people.
And for what it's worth: I love your work.
In order for the spirituality to appear African, the artist must be African, or African-American. Also, it helps if you use a lot of black, gold, red, and green in your work.
The art world often judges the art by the artist. Actually, it's not just the art world: I have a photo of my great-uncle Mario which came to me with this quote from Alexander Hamilton taped to it: "Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike."
The converse is also true: People often promote or support a thing merely because it was created by someone whom they like (or feel they should like).
Art world people feel they should like Africans and African-Americans because, after all, we're all equals, aren't we? Basquiat knew about the hypocrisy of this almost thirty years ago.
1. In order for the spirituality to appear African, the artist must be African, or African-American.
2. Art world people feel they should like Africans and African-Americans because, after all, we're all equals, aren't we?
I guess you're already aware of the inconsistencies in their thinking, so I don't need to comment. But I feel a sermon coming on, so here goes...
The practitioners of victimology are all hypocrites. Because they take victimhood as the only currency and wish to redress all previous wrongs (a great way of playing God, by the way), they victimize all who are not within the favored (make that "privileged") "traditionally-oppressed" groups. End of sermon.
(There, that wasn't so bad, was it?)
I finally read your last sentence, Chris. Ignore my last comment, please.
I envy Chris his opportunity to see your work in person. It's hard for me to judge a print without having seen the original. I'm sure there's something lost in the translation--there is an implied richness in the lower portion that doesn't seem to be fully there in the print--but otherwise what I see looks great.
It sounds like you need some new language to identify your work that is not laden with negative connotations. Tall order, but there has to be a way to describe it without hitting at least too many newagey trigger points.
Or just don't call it what it is at all. I didn't need to be told to realize what it is about. Anyone with half a sense for things beyond the material ought to recognize it.
What I think is kind of funny, being an outsider and all, is how much stock the art world seems to put into left-brained labeling and descriptions of what should be almost wholly a right-brained endeavor.
Oh, and I like the titles. It gives me a place to hang my left brain while my right brain takes it in.
How is your work received by people you consider to share your unabashed "spiritualness"?
They all love it. Love, love, love it. Yoga teachers, acupuncturists, ministers, Course in Miracles dedicats, Wicca priestesses, and my massage clients all covet it, not just one or two paintings, but ALL of them. So in the frame of reference I'm working in, I'm succeeding.
Because those people are really, really annoying.
Yes, of course they are, and I have contributed my share of diatribes illustrating just how annoying they are.
I suppose that all I have to say is that 1) it should be self-evident that I'm not like that, and 2) constantly trying to prove I'm not like that has contributed to a most unattractive defensiveness in my manner that I'm actively trying to shed.
So I promise, no more posts like this one.
It sounds like you need some new language to identify your work that is not laden with negative connotations.
Wait till you read my new 'artist statement.' Post-post modern, here we come!
how much stock the art world seems to put into left-brained labeling and descriptions of what should be almost wholly a right-brained endeavor.
No kidding. Some of the most successful art-world artists actually aren't right-brained at all; they come up with a wholly cerebral paradigm, and render the artwork from a blueprint, with the help of a stable full of technicians.
When I was in school, I engaged in some epic battles with various professors who expected any serious art student to work this way.
PL sez:
They all love it. Love, love, love it. Yoga teachers, acupuncturists, ministers, Course in Miracles dedicats, Wicca priestesses, and my massage clients all covet it, not just one or two paintings, but ALL of them. So in the frame of reference I'm working in, I'm succeeding.
You can see from this list that your fan base consists mostly of the aforementioned annoying people. I can see why you'd be defensive.
Take Alex Grey for example. I love his work. It hits all the right buttons for me. He's fantastic. And he's successful: His prints sell, he has his own gallery in Chelsea, he has all kinds of newagey knick knacks with his images on them, he works with Tool on their most incredibly awesome CD packaging.
But Alex Grey is completely invisible as far as the art world is concerned. He might as well not exist.
His fan base, also, consists of the aforementioned annoying people.
So it is possible to be successful doing this kind of work, so long as one defines "successful" carefully so as to leave out most of Chelsea (although Alex Grey does have shows there from time to time). If you want a blockbuster show at Pace Wildenstein, or you want to represent America at the Venice Bienniale, forget it.
But chances are, you've forgotten it already anyway.
DC sez:
What I think is kind of funny, being an outsider and all, is how much stock the art world seems to put into left-brained labeling and descriptions of what should be almost wholly a right-brained endeavor.
It is funny. And sad. And stupid. And frustrating. Thomas Wolfe wrote a whole (albeit very short) book on the subject called The Painted Word. It's all about how theory has triumphed over the image in art.
Actually, Chris, I find Alex Grey's work to be more than a little annoying. It is literal, flat, garish, and busy. The phrase 'metaphysics for middle-class mental midgets' comes to mind, although I suppose that's cruel.
Well, whether or not you actually like his work is sort of not the point. He's carved out a niche for himself.
Unless you think you can only carve out a niche for yourself by aiming low.
Well Thomas Kinkade definitely has himself a niche. ;)
Niches make me vomit.
Perusing Alex Gray's site, I note his use of entheogens for some of his source material. In a sense, that makes him an illustrator, albeit one who illustrates things not normally accessible to the typical person.
I know what you mean about niches. The very idea runs against my grain. So I'm not saying you should purposely dig yourself a niche. I'm just saying you could find yourself in one, which is different, and not so bad. I mean, you can only talk to people who'll listen.
Kinkade dug himself a very cynical niche. I doubt even he likes his own work.
Niches are short-term anyway. Fact is, if your work is out there, that means later generations can discover it and dust it off, lifting it from its niche and installing it for a wider audience. You're not painting for now, are you? Of course not, you're painting for the future.
Alex Grey's work is certainly on the illustration side of things. He started out as a medical illustrator, and then switched to fine art after he and his wife dropped acid in the late 1970s.
I tend to like illustration, though. I'm a big fan of illustrators.
You're not painting for now, are you?
I am painting for and in the Eternal Present, because past and future are an illusory construct of the egoic mind. Obviously.
;-)
That explains why you'll be Eternally Broke, then.
Is this a prediction, or a curse?
I don't lay curses on people. I'm a lover, not a warlock.
Thomas Wolfe wrote a whole (albeit very short) book on the subject called The Painted Word. It's all about how theory has triumphed over the image in art.
Chris Rywalt
Have you read what Tom Wolfe wrote about Frederick Hart in Hooking Up? Hart did the "Three Soldiers" statue for the Vietnam War Memorial. In his lifetime (he died in 1999), he succeeded in being totally ignored by the "legitimate" art world, while the people loved his work.
It seems art is where it has always been. You have to die to be understood and appreciated.
I'm not an art person. I know nothing. I have neither the vocabulary nor the sensibility to discuss it. If anything, I like nice old historical portraits of individuals, where one knows just what one is seeing and whether it looks pleasing or ill. But 'Heart' affects me unlike anything I've ever seen before. How odd and bewitching! Please explain it to me if you can, what this painting is supposed to represent and elicit.
Anonymous, the only thing I would say you need to learn about art is that you don't need an explanation. If a work of art affects you, that's all the explanation you need.
When I like something I do like to learn as much as I can about it, though. So I understand your questions. I just want you to realize that you don't need to be "an art person" or be able to discuss it or have some kind of vocabulary. Paintings are for your eyes, and that's all you need.
BTW, why do the art people identify PL's work as "spiritual"? Guilty consciences? I mean, if they don't like spirituality, and they aren't necessarily looking for it, why do they see it? You know, going back to pessimism/cynicism in art people I mentioned in my first comment in this thread.
Art people who aren't interested in spirituality don't identify my work as 'spiritual,' DuckMan; they don't identify it at all. I'm the one who identifies it that way.
PL is talking about how art people respond when she talks about her work, not when she just shows it. Because to get to show it, she first has to talk people into going to her studio. It's at the talk stage that things break down.
I don't think it's just about a dislike of the New Age... but definitely the art world has a hard time with the spiritual in art. It's bothered me alot because when I first got into abstract art, It was through Kandinsky who wrote that Spiritual in Art book. I think Malevich was addressing it in his way too as was Mondrian.
Some time in the early 80s the LA county museum had that show "The Spiritual in Art"... amazing... I still have the catalogue and treasure it.
But now it's like it's been stolen away or something! Almost like "what you see is what you see" has this death grip and it won't let go. It's like it's considered clever to not address it....
Beautiful paintings, Pretty Lady.
Niches make me vomit.
"Niche" seems to be a marketing term and carries a connotation of pandering.
On the other hand, "community", to me, is a very different way of looking at work that engages a particular sector of our human world. I've spent some time ruminating over this phenonmenon, myself, because I DO at times do work that is, shall we say, in internal conversation with a particular community. I say "internal conversation" because I'm not trying to "say" something to the community so much as I am immersed in my experience of the community as I'm working on the art. Therefore, the work is much influenced by that community and is a type of mirror of it.
However, it is naive to expect that the community involved is going to give a rat's ass about the work when you're done with it. It's also naive to expect that the "Art World" is going to care. Nevertheless, one does the work, and if it really succeeds as art then it's worthwhile and will, with luck, find its audience in the end. (You should live so long, heh...)
For example, lately I've been working on material that is the result of living in a particular area for 15 years. I am ecstatic to have finally found the channel for working on stuff that has been both my daily meat and a central political compulsion all this time. I am finally bringing that all together.
The best part is, the work is not only satisfying my inner compulsions, it also is doing some of the best things art can do, among them getting art fans to look with fresh eyes at the dynamic events around them, and also beguiling non-arty residents to look inquiringly at art. And talk to one another! In other words, it's establishing connections that were neglected or nonexistent before, both within individuals and within a community. (And I'm using "community" in a literal geographic sense here this time, but there are of course many kinds of community.)
Of note, some of the work has been bought my collectors outside the community on the basis of its art qualities. So we can use that as an indication that the work is succeeding on a larger level.
So, all by way of saying that there are worlds where art matters and is doing it's thing that are not "the Art World." The "Art World" is really just one more community. A very powerful one, of course. And one that serves very well as a "niche" for panderers.
The "Art World" is NOT a community, JD, it's a scene. The difference between a scene and a community is that a community fosters genuine relationships over the long term, where people support each other through difficult times, work through conflicts, learn from each other, put down roots, and grow.
A scene is situational and temporal, and carries no such commitment, relationship or implied responsibility. To be part of a scene, you show up; to leave it, you stop showing up. Nobody calls to ask why you're not there, nobody helps you through a difficult time, nobody engages deeply enough to actually work through most conflicts.
I think that art will be relevant in the larger world only insofar as it assists and fosters the kind of community you describe. Right now, particularly from what I saw in Chelsea yesterday evening, the Art World is largely a playground for useless rich people and adolescent poseurs.
It's like it's considered clever to not address it....
Well put, Eva. What's that about, anyway?
Pretty Lady: I should be more careful in my assumptions.
Does the Art World have anything to say about Madeleine L'Engle? (After all, she was spiritual, religious, and Christian - you can hardly get worse than that.)
I wonder if it really was planted in the 60s with Stella, just because when that LA County Museum show happened, it all seemed still so much within reach, and not weird or eccentric. I remember that it was the first time I saw these works by Hilma af Klint, who afterwards, sometime in the late 80s, had a big show in NYC. She was into theosophy –as many of those early people were. It is only now that I wonder why so many books were available to me about the guys, but not her.
People want to be ‘right,’ they want to be well placed and look like they are very certain of what they know - that things are fact, not taste or conjecture. And well, the spiritual in art is way too big and expansive for that. It relies more on the unknown, on things not being a fact. It leaves an immense amount up to the viewer. Of course that’s how it should be, but the wall text-ualization and art of the mind-fuck artist statement runs counter to so much of that.
I can't believe that someone has already referred to Madeleine L'Engle! I had no idea if she was Christian or whatever, but her Wrinkle in Time cuts through all realms and dogmas.
Are you kidding? Madeline L'Engle has written several books of Christian ruminations. Thus she is utterly ignored by the art scene.
A Wrinkle in Time was probably one of my first introductions to a 'transpersonal theology.'
Eva, your comments caused me to realize--this need to appear concretely 'clever' is all about insecurity. As long as you've got something to prove, you can't afford to venture into the unknown and unprovable.
I love this. It's a breath of fresh air come sweeping in.
I saw the first one and thought, *oh! a good heart, there, heh!-* and on to the next and the next and every one was suddenly and simultaneously much different, yet bound, connected, with the others. Better and better and better. I could almost see you tripping over yourself in your swiftness as you worked, except that it was entirely surefooted, landing then bounding away like a mountain goat. They almost fly when they move, like great birds, with the same strong beauty.
These *art scene* people you're talking about? I'm going to repeat to you something I've no doubt you already know. Know much better, in your way, than I do. Bear with me here.
Virtually all these people involved in the art scene are, deep down inside, terrified quivering little mice. Their greatest fear is of discovery: that the others in that scene will peer under the veil and realize there's just a terrified little mouse trembling away inside there, one who is totally and completely inconsequential. Not even so good as a little mouse, really: no, a sorry excuse for a human instead, absolutely and thoroughly inadequate.
They don't know who they are at all. Nothing. They've no idea what value means, or love or friendship. Or art. They have no sense of self-worth. They're so lacking these traits and these understandings that they can't even feel what's missing. They just know that something is. Or that everything is.
So they attempt to create a Human, to put a face on that mouse, a countenance to show the world. One they think the world might value, some; and so relieve a bit of their pain and emptiness.
Thus all the posing. They pose as intellectuals, as fashion royalty, as eccentrics, as connoisseurs, as those of Indisputably Perfect Taste.
They are, almost to a person, nothing and no one. They are not so very smart, not wise, don't realize that fashion and good taste don't always have much to do with each other, are excruciatingly boring and ordinary, and if they do have any taste at all, it's rarely good. Their best-developed skills encompass this forgery process that disguises them, and the vicious social jabbing and jousting required to defend the mask from being lifted.
All this posing is for one purpose only: to keep others from discovering what they already know to be true - that they themselves are of no inherent worth.
(The reason being, of course, simply because they themselves believe that's so.)
To support one's self in the world as an artist generally means that some method of interacting with them, while maintaining one's integrity, has to be developed.
It's one of the true sorrows of the human condition. And it's as timeless as bureaucracy.
But of course, I'm not telling you anything new.
Interestingly, I sense here the healthy true heartbeat of art that those poseurs try to suss out and flock around. Most interesting of all?
Pretty Lady, your spirituality - all of you, yes, you too, Chris - your spirituality may hold the key to connecting with them.
Surely it takes genuine spirituality to connect with such people - I'm not so pessimistic to suppose that can't happen - and to maintain one's integrity while doing so.
Unclutter that as you have your paintings and I bet you'll break through with them too.
Thank you, k, that was truly lovely. I am honored.
Stephanie.
You may not fully understand - because I haven't really told you - how much of my integral self you've reminded me of. You've allowed me to open back up to parts of my being that, for so many reasons, had become neglected over the last years. Atrophied, dusty, shriveled, colorless.
Coming back to life, now. And isn't that what healing is all about, anyway?
So. You see: I am honored.
Privileged. Privileged to watch your growth as an artist, a thinker, a healer, a writer, a lover, a person, unfold before me. Such true beauty, in so many ways. The ways that are real, that matter.
I love to watch everything that grows. But only rarely, very rarely, is it this sublime.
how much of my integral self you've reminded me of.
Then that is TRULY an honor.
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