A new year, a full cup

 

                                                                       

                                                                             One full cup  

                                                                  oil and cold wax on canvas

                                                                                    9x12

I've spent the past week reading a lot of writing I have done over the years. I was struck by the flow of language and my response to living and making that I was engaged in.  What is most interesting about looking back and reading and feeing again what I was expressing - is how everything changes ...life happens.  It seems that the depths become deeper, the findings become memories or are forgotten and somehow the seat from where I sit and see and think and feel still seems to be me, but even more so as time goes on.....

Sometimes my experience  is changing on paper or canvas in paint. 

Sometimes it is changing as good ideas come to plant seeds that grow me in new ways. 

And sometimes it seems down right surprising that a sense of self that was so curious and joyous and courageous can be blanketed over or even cracked by life's experiences once again...

amazing......

So, here I am, again. Sitting at a keyboard, preparing to put something into words in relation to this creative process I continue to move with and be moved by. I was curious to read the AI search for this writer part of me, it made me want to read what this woman was living with and expressing. I can't even remember the name of the other place I was writing from. Two blog spots and one other - oh yes...Wordpress. That one was called woman happy to be painting and musing. My last post there was in 2018. Yep. That's me. Even through the most challenging experiences of this year I was amazed by all the layers, all the feelings of being a human being woman. WOW. And honestly I am not much of a reader. I like books with pictures. Paintings. Collage. Color.

How many times can one be taken apart -- to find, once again, what is still truer about really being --about being oneself....in relation to what seems to be indescribable, ever changing and ever present....

Let's see if I can finish this with some kind of intention ....where do I want this to lead ? 

How do I want this to feel?

Am I committed to writing and how often?

I don't know. I'm quietly reconnecting with my creative process with an openness that I have not experienced before - it's like I am beginning a new relationship with myself, and in relation to what I create with and maybe even, for.

 I'm also experiencing less comparing how others do this. It's almost like what I imagine freedom to be.

I'm quieter about naming this ...there is a new trust that carries less of the excitement of earlier years when I was amazed to put any of this into words as well as into paint. And I still am in awe of the process of living, of being myself. I think that's life. How can it not be this way no matter what is happening? There is a gift here and we get to unwrap it ourselves in the midst of the whole nine yards of the world. 

My intention is for trusting the depth of feeling I carry within me to receive and the natural response to share the beauty it reveals.

All goodness is wished from here for you in our world as we begin 2026.

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.

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.

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.

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.

the sails of my boat

My teacher speaks of process painting as a conversation.
Experience has lead me to understand that to have a conversation one has to feel one’s ground and be the openness of listening.
To be willing to trust in what is unknown and beyond my control, sets the stage for a good conversation.

Intuitively, I have spent my life developing, discovering, uncovering trust in the ground of my own being.
Painting and meditation came together to meet me as I began my path of higher education.
They are the sails of my boat.
Life tests me to develop skillful means to see clearly and to feel fully.
Drenched in intuition and obeying my depth, I am following the direction of true north.

Who am I?

Oil and cold wax on panel

8x8 inches