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