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.