Sunday, May 27, 2012

Art can change you



Art can change you.  Beauty creates a shift.  Can bring you to your knees if the mood is right and the light hits the pavement just so. 

Art is changing me in a way I never suspected.  Snuck up on me and threw a bag over my head, confusing everything when the path was already dark and murky.  Painting kicked me out of my head where words bounce around like frantic jumping jacks colliding and vying for my attention.  Making images quiets them.

Pure imagination, happening before me without my permission or consent.  I just step out of the way.  I'm not skilled with a brush, haven't painted other than in school, and yet the things I'm learning about creativity herself.  How she whispers and guides, "Blue here", "try polka dots", "I like circles, more circles.  Wind the brush around like dancing."  But bigger lessons emerge that are guiding me like a muse.  Leading me down paths strangely forgotten.

As a child I wanted to be an artist.  I used to sell pictures door-to-door to my neighbors.  25 cents for the really good ones.  5 cents for the so-soes.  But I never stood out in art class.  Ted Skabinski did.  Instead, I leaned into writing, head down, filling endless notebooks with childhood angst that would be my salvation later on.

Now here is what has happened over the last few months, since I've discovered this intuitive form of painting.  Creativity has shown herself to me and for some reason I can't quiet her.  She's rattling me daily.  Shaking me awake.

Screaming from the inside at times.

I'm not really sure the path she's sending me on, but I know it's going to be very, very different from where I've been.

And I can't wait.

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