Find a Way Back to You

As artists and people, we have a certain amount of creative energy. Where that energy goes is up to us and the life we have created. Part of why I did not know I was a painter until later in life is that I was always placing my creative energy in other areas. I hadn’t yet tried painting, my art was in many other places.

My art was in friendships, letters and life. My art was in mothering and used as a resource for my surroundings. My art was in adventure. It was greatly used but, somehow, was not complete within myself until I began understanding I am an artist. I knew I was creative, just escaped me I am an artist. Those things are different. We are all here to create. We create through our lives. What makes an artist different?

I am still at the edge and at the beginning of this. I don’t have all the answers. There is an art of life and I hope you are living it, wherever you are in your creative cycle. That is one thing I know – there are creative cycles. We refuel and create, the downtime is necessary. The quality of my creativity is dependent upon it. I have learned to embrace the downtime and know, when the right time has come, I will hold in my hands a painting I am happy to see.

The downtime I have embraced. The part that is less easy is the time where there seems no time. What about the time when, for all the trying, life makes its requests and painting or writing doesn’t make the top part of the list. I am prone not to resist that. Yes, there are days I would love the painting process – downtime included – but I have had time away from art, in the past, and have seen that from a time away we only come back stronger. Sometimes, a holiday from the art is what life has in order.

Resist not. Art will make its demands and find a way back to you.

I hope you have a pleasant day,

c.s.