I have been spending weeks going back to the figure and underlying anatomy, which I haven’t practiced since art school…

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Secrets
Watercolor on paper, 21” x 12

It’s probably part of my quest to understand and communicate our “inner” workings and world as much as the outer ones. In any case, I spent at least a week getting artistically stuck between something very pure and spontaneous and my ego interfering with the desire to make a “good” piece of art. I pushed and pushed, never getting it quite right enough for my eye.

Then it happened. A small emotional upset drove me right back into the studio during off hours. With a few swift brush moves, I obliterated the main part of what I had spent days creating, literally “wiping out” my experience, without a care about what the end result might be. I was much more focused on processing my emotions than making something look good – in that space of “allowing,” the art became something entirely different.

Inside of an hour, not only had I found gifts and beauty in my actual upset, I had memorialized the experience in my art. I’m not sure that everyone would think that “Secrets” is beautiful, but I do know that for me, it’s done …at least for now.

Blessings,
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