the lineage and the hands that hold all this

i'm learning that i can still learn to be with the death of 'me'.

i started the painting with myself last week, 

then i thought i had brought God in and later on it was my mother.

then i thought i had brought God in and later on it was my grandmother, my mom's mom, 

then i thought a lot of thoughts 
and i had a lot of feelings, too.......

and then the black hands came in to hold all this, 

all this.....

God is holding all this for me.

i am learning that being "at a loss" is not such a bad place to be.

the upper hand

grateful

for 

mind and heart

in process

heart's longing is getting the upper hand

beginning again

bones

calling 

for flesh

and ground

to walk on

living in the meaning full and meaning less

how does meaning occur?

what gives meaning to our lives?

what is meaning?

can we live without it?

can we grasp it?

and can we let it go,

giving rise perhaps, 

to a deeper sense of meaning that is not mind made?

Mind/Ego gives meaning to forms and colors as I paint.
Mind/Ego needs meaning to know where it stands.
Without knowing where it stands it is put in great danger. 
The meaning it creates can also create a disturbance in me,
When I believe what I am thinking, when I identify with Mind.
If I like what is painted, I am stressed to lose it, 
If I don't like it, I am stressed to get rid of it.

I've heard that this is the function of mind - to name, to grasp...
Identified with mind, I have a preference for every experience that arises.

a stroke of the brush is made 
and mind will name it
this or that
it loves to do this
.and that.

Meaning created by mind has a quality of holding tight, 
keeping something intact. 
It has the quality of resistance, 
not yielding to something greater than it can know.
Being able to step back and let the painting be painted,
I allow the process to do its work through me. 
I let go and am returned to a wholeness that is easy and good.
Laughter is a by-product of letting go.

in life,
in process,
with awareness, 
the effort to hold meaning intact is dislodged, 
gently.


When I am aware of the feeling of touch 
of colored brush to paper,
without knowing what anything is
I feel 
the quality
the contact
the sense of connection
of felt meaning, 
of being, 
in the heart.

This brings rest to what is seeking meaning.
This brings to rest what is seeking to be seen.
This brings the awareness of a deep and abiding joy into my life.


the meaningful encounter
breathing
living 
issuing out of the silence we share
we become more sensitive to one another
and we find meaning, 
after all, 
without looking for it.

the gift of process

We are in process. Sometimes we may forget that we are in process because we are thinking thinking thinking about where we are heading. 

By letting thinking have us, we miss the moment 

                                                     - b e i n g  h e r e  n o w- 

the fullness that is beyond our thinking of being fulfilled when we reach our goal is subtle and always present, waiting for our heart's attention.

The Life Death Life process painting continued and reconnected me to my living and breathing process. 

It spilled over into my oil paintings and I feel as if the thread has been returned to my hand.

It has brought me closer to the silent place where thinking does not have a chance. 

It takes trusting in the not knowing to open the space for the flowering.

a poem came out of the experience - "the fire within has a language of its own" - and can be read at womanhappytobepaintingandmusing.wordpress.com

lifedeathlife in process

i'm in a quietness.
i was asking the mother of all
what to do, how to bring form to what i do, in relation to others
how to do this sharing of the heart's gift?

i have a note on my dashboard,
one of those prayers that came spontaneously from the deep...

'let me be your doing'

will i begin to let this be the way i live?
i notice i am still confusing myself, looking for results that appear long term...

like, oh. this is what i do. and this is how it is received. and there it is. like that.
sounds like something that would fit into a box!!

after i asked how to bring my gift into the world and how and where and when.......
in the next moment i had received a mail from a friend whose husband is dying.
she asked me to come over if i could.
this is not like my dear frightened friend who was wishing he would die.

this man, 

he is dying. 

i do know the difference. 

and it brings the deep up to the surface, to share...

i can
sit in the quiet
near the unknown
with another.

i can paint there, too
and offer that to others
celebrating all it brings into form,

together and alone.

but what is being asked
seems to be
to be quiet.
to sit with.
to be with.

something greater than i know
is showing me what to do, to be her doing.

i'm in practice with lifedeathlife herself.

jai ma

beyond the visual by mary mckenney

                              

http://ccesf.org/beyond-the-visual/#comment-6

click on the above link to see the painting and read more of Mary's response to life through paint.


this is the piece of writing that opened the window this morning

Art is a visual medium. But it is mainly visual from the point of view of the observer. For the artist, the visual is only a means, a tool—a medium, yes,  but not just for the eyes. For the artist it’s about consciousness. The painting we observe is consciousness in a costume. The art is everything we cannot see. But the sensitive observer sees with the artist through the costume, the outer layer to the real creation.  So maybe art isn’t a visual medium as much as it is a vehicle, an opening, an exploration, an exposure. If the artist’s heart is open, the art will be timeless. And in timelessness is the opportunity for the observer to receive and respond to the work … because she is consciousness, too. In that way, art can be a mirror.

This painting definitely looks finished, doesn’t it? You might say it’s too finished, too “busy,” dense, impossible to see what’s going on, sort of interesting on the left where there’s some yellow, but too dark on the right. Someone named Arthur William Radford said, “Half of art is knowing when to stop.”  (I’d be curious to know what he thinks the other half is.) To know when to stop means that the artist must change from creator to speculator, make an aesthetic judgment, an active decision not to go past an arbitrary boundary, risking chaos. The initial brushstrokes may have burst forth with abandon, but what is crucial is stopping at … just … the right … place. That makes the artist half creator, half a judge of distance and control.

What does it mean to go too far, to ruin a lovely effect, to make something dark and hard to decipher? It means to lose control—not in a wild, destructive way, but to go beyond the limits of the mind. A true artist is not concerned with making a pleasing painting. A true artist does not care about the viewer orthe judgment. She cares about truth and readiness, the inner readiness that is consciousness. The painter who knows when to stop becomes a businessman, a seamstress with a tape measure, an authority, a jailer of the self and all its potential.

Mary McKenney

freeing the birds

30 x 68 inches

This painting began several months ago and had several pauses in its process. I kept taking it off the wall to make space for the process of others. As painters came to paint, I would begin a new painting as they began to enter their own process.  

But this painting deserved my full attention, which I couldn't give it until recently. 

It called me back into my process. 

Late last night the birds were freed from the inside of the inside, beyond my knowing mind. 

I feel graced to be part of my own painting process again. And today I am inspired, through the community of painters who go beyond the known and write about it, to let these birds take me further.

hands, holding and reaching out

There is a rhythm in process.


Not knowing what is happening sometimes looms larger into view when the inner current pulls the creative impulse deep below the surface, out of sight.

The last two paintings were like that, unfamiliar enough to open me to the doubting mind. Even when familiar imagery of embryonic spheres appeared, I did not feel connected as I have in the past. Something new is taking form and I can't see it yet.
I'm listening to the body's anxious responses to the unknown. Taking care not to abandon ship nor to retreat to the back of the boat.

And then the hands began to appear again. 
Red and blue, holding and reaching out. 
A lightening heralded some breathing room.

The process continues to unfold.

not needing to understand frees the paint brush

I've mentioned that I am painting alone with the process right now. It's like walking a very new path and all my senses are alert. I found this question today in Michelle Cassou's Book of Questions, it made the way feel wider and I moved with the flow it invited.

"What would I paint if I didn't have to understand what I was doing?"

a new beginning

I am beginning a new painting, meeting the brown man that appeared many paintings ago. Love is flowing, and curiousity. 

Dot after dot. 

Touching, touching, touching, touching. 

Breathing.

the fullness of giving way

giving way to the process

i pass through layer after layer 

of experience.

not knowing the outcome

allowing the not knowing

being the not knowing

i let go 

to the color and shape that has a will of its own

every moment.

this is the first painting i followed through with "on my own."

my classes with Barbara Kaufman are completed for the time being

and i lean into the wealth of gifts received in my time shared with her.

as i learned

in her company

 to listen to my own inner voice

feeling the questions

meeting the conflict that arises within

discovering its innate creative tension

as life itself,

 i give way to the fullness that always waits to be expressed.

with a full heart i continue to paint and live, 

supported without a doubt by this widely shared gift 

of meeting life through process painting.

jai ma!

emergence

life is good

and continues to emerge

beautifully

gesture of gratitude

there is a gesture
from inside
that is so grateful for this process

more than ever
just to do something
to express myself in the moment
with a red line
a pink line
a black dot

the process unfolds me to myself
it enfolds me in presence

i want to keep posting on this unveiling
and it is so profound
and about nothing and everything
that i'm kind of quieted
and eased.

and i'm eased into a real life
with real challenges
and i'm feeling steady and ready
for more.

a kind undoing and joining

Damn! I am just amazed.
To begin this painting with the entry point and to think that I knew what even THAT meant!
Oh, the mind is quite the spinner of the dream. It wants to be the creator, so badly, and it will use the slightest breath of a thought to stay in control!

The heart is the true weaver.

As I finished the previous painting, I could sense that something new was waiting to become known. I was willing to paint to know it. I could see that however I was painting, was the way I would know it. And yet, I could feel that the ways I knew before were not opening the painting further - I tested them but the flow was not there. So, that must have been a sign that it was finished.
The new could not move in the confines of my trying to open the way for it.

As I look at the new painting above (still in process) I can see that the whole appeared out of the womb entry, and in deed, I was born through and as my own form. The vulva and fallopian tubes begat children, pleasure, my self, and unknown galaxies....

I am being new born this spring through my own living process, finding a new strength in my legs. I am standing on my own two feet, in my center.
I am seeing through what comes up within and meeting it.
In the past few weeks I have felt such a new shift in my perspective...from the center everything looks just the way it looks, not more or less - friendly, above all, friendly and kind.

I'm just amazed, again and again for mind to be seen through - through paint - uncovered.
I continue to be in awe to watch knowing be dispelled so generously by this painting process.

Today I learned to hear the difference in a question from the soul and one from the mind.
The question posed by the mind gives me work to do and it does not open any door; it does not open me.
The question the soul asks awakens the dormant life force to come out and play, to join in, to participate.

This dormant life force is also me.
There is an including of myself that is occurring through this process in paint, in meditation and in daily life.
I am learning how to participate in my life.
When there is less of me in the way, there is more of me to smile to listen to pause to respond to paint to write to live and to meet life.

Barbara Kaufman has played such a valuable role in my seeing through what my mind says is so or should be so. She has been my sounding board, my projection, my friend, my mentor this year. I have a long held condition of bowing to authority - that whatever the other presents, I am lead to be that, too. And it is so impossible to be other than myself. I can join in the conversation now, as I am.

This is such a wonderful surrender and homecoming all rolled into one.
Again and again,
and again.
I send out my gratitude to Michelle Cassou for putting her experience and love into a form that we can all receive the best of, for ourselves.
It is a win-win, and that makes the world go round so well. This is the same world we all live in.  We can help one another see our blind spots when we are willing to have the conversation about what is true, through the heart.

It was a long journey to return to the friendly world of myself.
I am no longer an outsider.

life desires to be known

So a few weeks ago
Turmoil was boiling in me
I was pushing up against her every where I turned
The old ways of shutting her down appeared uninteresting
And I paced the rooms
She wouldn’t leave me alone
I was cornered.

The form this cauldron had taken was a painting
A process painting
A painting whose only purpose is raw and infinite possibility.

And I was reaching a new edge
What used to open all the doors
Connecting the dots
Finding more and more layers of connection
Wasn’t the way this one was going.

So I paced.
And paced some more.
Then I went directly to the book of questions.
I had to find my own way into this source,
to the doorway of the secret waiting to be known.

I wrote down what I was feeling:
I didn’t know what was happening
In the painting in my life.
I felt turmoil.

The path in is always at the point of what is appearing.
I asked myself what would I paint if it was ok to feel turmoil.

The hint came by noticing my resistance to this state I was in.
I didn’t like it.

What would I paint if it was ok to feel turmoil?
My answer was great desire.
I sensed, that this pressure wasn’t turmoil, that is what I had named it.
It was great desire pressing to the surface for air.
Great Desire.

And what would I paint?
A penis emerged out of a black hole that had appeared earlier in the painting.
It had no meaning, no reason to be there, and now it was the place for this emerging energy to be given a form.
The pleasure in process is the letting go of meaning.
A form has a life of its own and I just get out of the way.
And more and more and more penises emerged out of the black holes.

My desire had been met, honestly.

The next painting I began with a great deal of openness.
And the head of a child began to take form and then another figure.
But when BK asked me what is one thing I would paint from the last painting,
I knew it was the penis emerging out of the black hole.

So I began again.
One big emergent penis.
For no reason but to express my desire.
Oh, yes, my mind had a field day with the form it took.

Then flowers filled the space around the tall presence of desire.
And again, my mentor asked...what was I feeling before I painted all the flowers?
I knew exactly what I was feeling. I had been stopped.
What was I supposed to do with a penis?

My mind was happy with all the flowers. I was at ease with them. I liked the story about devotion and the lingam and shakti. I also did really feel that the penis was inside me. And there was an innocence to the flowering.
But of course there was more to this than the idea of shiva and shakti.

Something more than stories feeds my soul.
Something in my own life was waiting to emerge.

And I began another painting of a tall erect penis.
No black hole this time.
And when the penis was complete, I waited.
It did not take long for the vulva to begin to wrap itself around the head of the penis.
The doorway was the womb.
I am living in the body of a woman, after all.
And this is really not about penises or wombs or vulva.
And I am present to the connections these forms offer me to meet.

All this
(life-painting-writing-being-learningloving)
is taking place through a body and I am at my own doorstep now.
I can feel that I am painting in a new less exacting way, that what I painted before is done, the paintings of this past year were the stepping stones to now.
I am at a new edge and I can feel the urge to shut down and turn away.

Process painting can be done alone but one won’t go as far as is possible without the support of another.
The best other is one who has already passed through so many doors that doorways are all she sees now.

Door upon door upon door.
And the wonder of unlocking the next one,
in whatever form it takes.

process reveals what is true, beyond the idea of connection

I could have titled this post penis process, but alas I am stepping into this doorway with care, not daring.
What I am discovering lies beyond the form of the penis. But it was the form of a penis that released me from a mind in turmoil, a mind afraid of my own experience of desire.

I had been painting, continually finding more and more layers of connection.
They appeared naturally in the process and I wasn't trying to make them happen.
It felt like an expansion of unending connective possibility.
Then the black lines came in, - opening, opening - and then the white teeth like shapes came along the smaller black lines.
I began to feel really distraught, the feeling of completion was not arising despite all the connections, a sure sign that there is something more to discover, yes?
I was stopped, blocked, looking for the next passageway.

 I went to Michelle's book of questions and practiced to bring my own question into form.

I wrote to myself:
I don't know what the painting (my life) is about, I feel turmoil.
Then I wrote the question out of the experience I was having:
What would I paint if it was ok to feel turmoil?
I would paint great desire -
In the turmoil was this resistance NOT to be feeling the way I was feeling.
I named it turmoil.
It was desire.

And it took on the form of a penis.
Glad that I was alone, I was free to paint a penis.
Not forced, but inviting.

The first one emerged out of a black hole that had appeared as a kind of lock shape, in my center.
And then one after the other, more pink desire emerged from the other black holes which had appeared earlier in the painting.

The penis was not threatening, and that was good for me to notice.
I enjoyed painting it and remembering all its qualities.
I haven't seen one in so many years, I had to really call in my memory!
The mental drama around a penis is lessening.

Is the penis the great connector in my belief system?
I hope not.
I mean, because without one, I would experience disconnection.
And I am not disconnected, far from it.

Belief number 3456 has burned up as I write this.

It felt like the only form I knew - in that moment - to express desire.
I am worried a bit about myself (I am conditioned to worry)
that that would be my way, as a woman, to express desire....

I can see that it is one way to express desire.
There are beliefs in me about desire.
This completion gave way to ease.

The next painting I began right away, letting the energy lead me on.
I thought I knew where it would lead but a child's head began to appear.
I painted the beginning very, very, very openly, not knowing at all what was arriving out of the brush.
I let myself slow down to let the lines relate to one another on their own, not from my ideas.
 I'm learning.
My dreaming that night was magical and friendly.

That's what this is.
I am learning
all the time
that the next moment and the next, I cannot know.
It brings with it awareness of living on the edge.

To feel connected to life is what I desire.


More concern at times, and at other times the furthest thing on my mind :
that I either don't want to do anything or I want to keep painting!
Desire takes many forms and I am releasing myself from the judgements I place on my experience, painting myself free from judgements that live through learned conditioning.

Clearly, I'm still on the mind see saw.
And insecurity,
though troubling to a mind that wants to know,
is also becoming more of a truth I am learning to live with.
In every moment I can pause and make a new choice.



I hope you have a wonderful day as your own truth is revealed,

BH

connection

Connecting the dots is what I am called to do.
The most satisfying way I do that is through painting.
Why would someone question the validity of what one is called to do?
Only through comparison and judgement would this be put into question.

I’m laying that one down now.
I paint.
That is my business.

We all have our calling.
For some of us it is a given, it has simply been the way we live.
Sometimes this is more challenging than you might imagine, to have one thing to do all one’s life.
To have the artha - the means - to pursue my dharma - my path - has been the baseline of what has held me through years of still life, landscape, self portrait, interiors and countless drawings.

My sight has been altered.
I cannot say ‘changed’ as that would imply something like changing my clothes or shoes. I didn’t change my subject or learn a new approach. It wasn’t like that.
But process painting caught me and has carried me while I found my feet and my sight on this new earth.

Tonight I recognized something.
I am attracted to my paintings. Through them, while I paint and when they are completed, I connect to something deep within myself.
 
Painting is how I listen and follow the call I hear, enacting a mystery play within my own life. I am the player and the stage. Many characters arrive to express what is unknown to me.
But I am not the director.
The director is that which I listen to, that which calls me, deeper and deeper in touch with itself.
This may be obvious to many in relationship to what they love.
 And tonight I put it into these words and say it for myself.

I am grateful for this life as a visual devotee of Love.
Now I know what love means.
It means to be held no matter what else is happening.
If we don’t get in the way of aggrandizing this most creative of impulses, we are fed by what we seek and are met and self expressed by the call itself.

I bow to what has held me when others could not.
I owe my life to it.

painting the dream

a blog is an ongoing conversation
and what keeps the conversation going?

 curiosity
and discovery
and more curiosity.

I experienced the first time
to feel the need to see the full image.

the image called for another piece of paper.

i have been beginning with full sheets
wanting to open the door to wide expression.

but yesterday i began with a half sheet
and could feel the call for more
when the womb appeared
and the child.

What is this process?
it is calling forth life
like a dream that i am awake to,
i paint the dream.

it all comes back to her

When you let go of control in process painting, anything or anyone can and will show up to join you.

The first time my mom came into the painting I discovered the gift of form. I was feeling a lot of mixed emotions after spending time with my family one summer vacation. My parents are both very elderly. And the fact of life, which is death, loomed large in my awareness.

I began the painting with a large black spiral. Around and around it went in the center of the paper, and so did my emotion, caught in the spiral jetty I had made. When BK came around to see where I was at, having told her I was going to paint my mom, she asked me why I hadn't painted my mother. Not like I was avoiding something.......eh?

As soon as I let my brush paint my mom's face, all the black swirling stopped inside me and I just felt the love I feel for her. From here, the painting continued to take form, keeping me in contact with what I was feeling in relation to my mom, and life and death.

Sometimes I begin a painting from a thread found at the completion of a previous painting. But for now I am glad to have myself to begin with. Any form will touch me. I might as well start close to home.

being human, painting

The gift of painting, free from control, meaning or product making,
coincided with life getting the upper hand.

I've learned to surrender to the creative process called life
by practicing doing what I love to do
and being as honest as I can be,
 with myself.

There is no way around the surrendering part.

But finding a kind way to open to the unknown
is the reason for the smile on any creative person's face.

Being human

is being creative

and being honest

lights the creative fire.

risking failure for the beauty of living

As I painted an abundant and floral field today, an oil painting, I met the voice of the judge as the physical sensation of holding back and being too careful.
This sensation brought me directly into the field of process painting - my body.

listening in process - hearing the judge - taking risks

This has prompted me to write about something I think we all know well.
The judge thinks it has the keys to keep me safe from risk. The risk may take many forms: receiving a negative evaluation of my new work, the risk of failure, the risk of over stretching and snapping the connection with what guides me.
I have been process painting now for a year.  The benefit of taking a risk has been experienced many times, consciously. I have been witnessed and supported in doing so because process painting is not done alone. Taking a risk is like walking through a door that is too narrow for the truth.

Every moment is a doorway.


To paint without controlling the image allows me to connect with the unknown and its inherent life giving energy.

To paint without needing to produce anything is priceless, as it slows me down to sense what is the next true impulse.

To paint without having to burden the experience with meaning is a breath of fresh air for my complex (and wonderful) abstract mind.


Now the question for me is how to continue to paint and exhibit, with these same guidelines.

Here is where I am stepping into new territory.
Here is where I am finding what really matters to me and why I continue to paint, write or speak about the creative process.
Here is where I am following through.

As I painted I suddenly felt that I was afraid to be led into this floral field, not knowing where it would lead. Before process painting, I might have stopped or pushed myself through, without really paying attention to the sensation.

I could feel that I did not know where I was going, a fact of process painting I am very familiar with now.

The unknown is the ground of process painting.

I could feel that I thought I needed to know, if I was going to put this on a gallery wall in a few weeks.
The feeling of wanting to bring black into the field was coming up. I hesitated and listened to all the inner considering that arose.
What if the painting isn’t resolved before it is due to hang on the gallery wall? What if it I fail? What if I ruin it?
Wanting to follow my impulses, I knew I was either walking the gangplank or entering another doorway. All these thoughts were swirling in my head and I dove below them and followed the impulse.
Continuing to follow more impulses, I experienced myself entering the flow of the river in creative intimacy.

I could feel the judge trying to hold me safe from risk.
And it no longer felt like a place I wanted to be painting or living from.

The resulting black marks in later sessions became the invitation for another mark, and although meaning is eschewed in process, I am happy to see what feels and looks like butterfly wings, softly touching into the grasses and blossoming field of myself.



The new paintings in this mini show are recent. Some of you may have visited my studio in River District Arts and saw them last November. But that one painting is inviting me further, past it's first blush of a beautiful impression.
I am willing to risk it’s failure for the experience of painting beyond what I know. It's a little risky to even consider exhibiting again, but I am.

Life is an ever authenticating process 
and I am in process.

I hope the new paintings have a sense of stepping just a bit beyond what is known,
or of leaning inward to listen,
toward what is unknown and beautiful.


If the ground shifts under our feet, it's a call for our senses to sharpen.


Friends, my hallway is filled with large unfinished paintings of trees and fields and of shapes that have no names, from my studio in Germany. There are more paintings of fields and gardens that I have begun recently leaning on the wall in the corner of the living room I call a studio. I study my life everywhere, in all the rooms of the house. It is looking as if my work has begun long ago and all I am invited to do now is to follow through.

I have never known the feeling of really following through with my work as a painter. There has always been someone else to give my loving attention to. There is a satisfaction in this focus that is new to me. And this is where I am now.
I’m not going anywhere, I’m home. I’m not looking for a better place to be.
I have developed a relationship with the unknown that I am beginning to trust.
I have taken risks to know that this trust lies in me.


I could call my mini show The Nature of Risk.
I learn from nature, she is my teacher.
It is late afternoon now, and she is calling me to a walk in the sun.



Be well
and keep your fire tended.
we need it,

Barbara

the touch of mystery

When can I say this all began?
How did I get where I am today?
Who am I?

I love these questions and today I am feeling how they have become my life, how they live with me, how they carry me along into the mystery, day by day, moment by moment.

This morning the mysterious process of creative living was underlined once again by the wise words of Julia Cameron.
Bless her heart. Bless her work. Bless her for writing and listening to her process.

It was her book, The Artist's Way Every Day, that still sits by my morning side, which I read through the fifteen months of my woodland time out. I know that those months are the ground for all I do, now. It was a time of such deep questioning, stopping and listening, and is indeed, how I arrived here. Its mystery is woven into me and is why I can write at all, now, and actually let my words be released, trusting them to be strong enough to fly.

Julia Cameron writes, "Mystery is the heart of creativity. That, and surprise. All too often, when we say we want to be creative, we mean that we want to be productive. Now, to be creative is to be productive -- but by cooperating with the creative process, not forcing it."

"Creativity requires a respectful reticence. The truth is that is how to raise the best ideas. Let them grow in dark and mystery."

Today I am celebrating every step through the "dark and mystery" that brought me here. I feel all my questions and how they have settled down into my body from my mind. I feel all the waiting, all the wondering, all the aching, all the confusion as I faced the mystery and found myself in relation to it.

Today I wanted to acknowledge all the hands that kept taking form in my process painting this past year.

They were reaching to touch me: red hands, black hands, pink hands. 
I was reaching to touch me and they were in service to this longing.

How strong the impulse was that it needed such strong colors! Yes, there were moments of judgement. Oh, the black hands! Oh, the red hands! So dangerous my mind said they were! But over time they no longer carried a story, they carried feeling, only feeling. They were necessary.

Yesterday the hands came again and took on a recently mixed soft pink color and they were my own hands, touching my mother's face and hair. I had begun to paint myself and could not ignore the resemblance to my mother. To allow both these realities is the way I came in touch with myself and what I was feeling. Mother is where my life, with all its needs and joys, began.

The mystery of process will bring more surprise to life through this painting.

I'm so grateful to life and the process that has brought me into such intimate relationship with the mystery.

That mystery has taken the form of many women who have supported me along the way. Most recently those women are Barbara Kaufman, the director of the Center for Creative Exploration and Julie Daley, the creator of Writing Raw and Unabashedly Female. Both these women live, work and play in San Francisco, CA.

I can't say enough about process painting or writing raw.
The mystery can never be fathomed, nor can we.

my new job:
wake up
feed the birds
make tea or coffee
ponder
be inspired
don't even try to fit this into words
write
or paint
do whatever comes first.
love being
such a mystery.

the tenderness of our creative potential

Today my painting felt like flow and I named it as "my flow."
Then when I made a move that I considered not to be in the flow, well, the painting process showed me even more about flow.

The process is the teacher. And oh, am I the student.
The ways of forgetting that are as subtle or as shocking as the ways I remember.

So, here’s the story behind that observation.
I began painting myself on a half sheet which is 20x26 inches.  I had just completed a very large painting 65x40 inches, which I look forward to write about as it held me through some very rough energetic seas and gifted me in the completion with an experience in paint, of the flow of giving and receiving and how they continually dance.

Of how giving becomes receiving and receiving becomes giving. 

It is amazing, to watch that occur and then it disappears into memory. 
It is more than a memory though I couldn’t say what it is, but I was a part of the experience. 
And that is so wonderful, to include oneself in life at the level of creation.


As I painted, I noticed the judgment that I would need to paint the whole figure didn’t land anywhere, nor did the thoughts that I really don’t know if I was doing this right - beginnings can be awkward. The feeling of not knowing and wanting to know, to catch the way it was related to what came before, it all flowed along as the shapes and colors appeared.

What I also noticed was that it reminded me of a few very early paintings from my first year in college. At that time, I did not want to paint the way I painted. In my mind it (I) was unsophisticated. I wanted to paint the way everyone else painted. I wanted to do it like they did. This belief was my conditioned destiny. It caused the tension I lived with for years.

If I had known that doing it like they did, which was basically aimed at belonging - and wanting to be myself - were two opposite wishes, I could have asked for support to find the way to paint my paintings.

It’s ok.
I learned other good things and am still finding my way to own my way.
Which after 40 some years of painting (and 62 years of living) is a good thing to be able to say.
I have not given up.
I wouldn’t stop process painting for the moon.

In process I am able to see so directly what I do to protect myself from the tenderness of being myself (as well as not knowing myself) 
and how I shy away from experiencing the tenderness of creativity itself.
What I saw myself do after I began the small painting today was to overlook this tenderness.

While I was mixing paint for tomorrow, I tested the blue. Boldly I painted radiating stripes from behind my head.
The beginning had not even had a night to rest before she was over shadowed by this willful move of mine. And I put a strand of pearls on her neck!

Where was I? Had I moved out of relationship so quickly from the previous hour that I moved in to use her for my own agenda, to test a color, to make a bold radiant background?
Could I have held in awareness the possibility, instead of filling up that empty waiting space?
If I had held to the self identity (am I looking for a rule here or a good direction….) If I had held the identity of myself with a bit more care, would I have moved so boldly?
My answer is that I was not in relationship to the painting.
Whether the image begins as myself or not, the main thing is to be in relationship to the painting.
It is, after all is said and done, only me, realistically and spiritually speaking.


I am breathing and writing through this and asking myself for some compassion.
I saw what I did. It was a conditioned response. And thank goodness no harm was done! I’ve been known to be more foolish in real life. But my stomach did feel the difference when I saw the first photo at the end of the day.

Until I made that comparison I was unaware of how my will had moved into the process and moved me out of relationship.
Then I judged me.

I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
I love you.
Thank you.

How many times will I be called to forgive myself?
100,000 times or more.
To see again how hard a judge is and always is.
To see that some judgements flow by, and I breathe easy and others find their hook and settle in, inviting me to breathe deeper into not knowing.

A beginning is something new.
I learned quickly through this painting, how I want to bring more attention and care to a beginning. 
To let it unfold slowly. 
To stay in relationship to the empty spaces, too.

There is nothing to gain in barging into a beginning with such bravado.
And the process let me see that, and to even question that statement!

Tomorrow I will step in to what is there, and come back into relationship to the potential that is waiting to unfold.
The process also lets me step out of the control I wish I had on the painting, on myself, and yes, on life.
Oh, there is the idea still alive and well that mistakes are mistakes and not opportunities for learning.

Again and again, the love I have to paint has found a way to be of service to self knowledge and to my own gentle and colorful surrender.

her sense of humor

"In the absence of role models for the new feminine in our culture, the Goddess speaks through dreams and creative imagination, giving guidance to those who choose to listen. Her sense of humor always softens the sharpness of her approach. Her compassion for the human being in the human situation establishes a strong, loving container so long as communication is kept open." ~ Marion Woodman


I was on the receiving end of her humor tonight as this painting came to a completion. I was hovering near an end that I did not know but knew I had to dare toward.
And so, the erection came in from the left side and the brown man appeared, with his hand outstretch to the woman.
Then I waited.
And the apple dropped into his hand.

The humor did not escape me of him handing her the apple.
Red splashed into the remaining white spaces and the painting and I felt complete.

and that's what it's all about....

I thought to just ramble a bit in this post, about this process of Spontaneous Painting I am enjoying so much, trusting that one's joy song is everyone's joy song, even though the words may differ. I'm honored to be a part of your world in this way.

Spontaneous Painting is your direct experience of being in relationship to the unknown and giving it form, painting it - literally.

When we are honest about the unknown, none of us knows what is going to happen next.
We may have a plan, but we really cannot know how that plan will fulfill itself.
Our plan will be challenged by life and when we can remain open to the unexpected, our plan is often fulfilled beyond what we could have imagined.

We’ve all experienced that kind of outcome I'm sure, even in our day to day lives.
I am curious about feeling lead from within, beyond what is imagined, in a way that one experiences more joy and ease in relation to life.

I have a little book on Zen by Cheri Huber called Nothing Happens Next.
This is a wonderful koan.
Everything is only ever happening now.
Process Painting is a tool, a support, a means, into the direct experience of Being. Here. Now.
 
Process Painting gives us an arena to test these muscles of ours and to see where those conditioned muscles of control can be given a little more space, to relax.
It is not about becoming a better or even a more spontaneous painter!

It is a practice of discovering and exploring what lies underneath the grip of control, underneath the ‘me’ plan.

I’m going to be painting with some 4-H kids this month for Living Sky Foundation in Sperryville, VA. I am looking forward to the natural spontaneity that children bring to painting.
But I do have a mission.
The more time the young mind lives in the world, the freedom of that unselfconscious child is slowly put to sleep. Many succumb to the world’s expectations and demands on their creativity and time. It is part of the process of "growing up" in the world as we know it. It is the process of growing into the individual that we all must pass through.

But what if a child didn’t lose contact with their creativity?
What if they were taught that it can be trusted and that they can be trusted with it?
That it was in fact, their (your) birthright, their (your) connection to who they (you) are and why they (you) are here?

Spontaneous Painting is an exploration of those conditioned responses we have placed before the unknown for the sake of feeling safe, comfortable, right and in control.

Are you willing to leave that paper open and empty, just a bit longer?

Are you willing to paint without knowing where it is going or what it is about?

Are you willing to give yourself the space to find out that you honestly don’t know.
Are you willing to be with how that feels?

Are you willing to be with yourself as the conditioned ideas of ugly and beautiful, of wrong and right, of good and bad - all your stories - rise and fall away in you?

As the painting brings what is unknown in you into the light,
are you willing to be gentle with yourself at the same time?

So, my friend, Spontaneous Painting is not about the painting that you will take home with you.
It is about who you are when you go home, having let go a little bit of the product maker.
It is about what happens while you investigate this quiet, deeply interior well of creative possibility within you, with paint as your flashlight of color.

Don't forget the  simple joy of color !!

Everything is happening for our awakening.
There is no hiding from it.
Awakening doesn't take us away from life, but into it.
This is the Age of Aquarius, my friends!
It is time for our uniqueness to live as the heart and light of our humanity.
It is a time of synthesis, of knowing that spirit and matter are one.


Let’s rock this boat and free the slaves
(they have served us very well)
Be liberated and astonished
By your very own true nature!


Painting and Writing are my passion.
Process Painting may help you reconnect with yours,
if you sense the connection is calling for some support.

And it's fun, it is really fun.

 

not knowing what a single thing is

I was painting
in process
which means watching what I feel and think
while painting...

already one breakthrough
and a plateau had been reached
small marks
reenter the bodies

then I could feel the energy building
and I asked what wanted to join in
and the sense of the three bodies being embraced came

and it came from far away in the mountain
like a tail of a snake
and it moved behind the bodies
but when it came around the right side
it wasn't a snake any more
it was just a black ribbon like force of nature

or whatever

it was just what it was
and it entered one body
and exited here and entered there.
it was free to move in and out.

then the openings and exitings called my attention

and that was what i wanted to write about
that i painted these entrances and exits
not knowing more than that,
that they were entrances and exits

I painted with a care that I hadn't known before for something that I didn't know what it was.
that's all.
just that.

a new experience of not knowing as loving.



Da Free John, the Heart Master had a lovely little book for children called What to Remember to be Happy.
it was kind of like our bible while the boys were growing up.

No one,
not your mother, your father,
a doctor, a fireman
a priest, a teacher, a lawyer
or people who are working

No one knows what a single thing is.
this is the Mystery
this is the secret of being happy
from the time you are small
to the time you are old.

No one knows what a single thing is.
to be happy
to keep on loving and
to not be afraid
keep on remembering and feeling
God or the Mystery.

red in process

red again
these paintings begin to stand on their own
as they are
in process
transparent
holding the possibility
as yet unrevealed.

dots are necessary to complete a dot
connecting the dots comes naturally.

color moves from light blue to white to yellow
each moment in response
to all that came before,
now.

then the red arrives
and the expansion is felt
dots grow in size
the painter is saturated in red
and something feels complete.

my heart beat is felt
thrilled to be connected
and expressed.