Dating Again

As part of my little program of recovery and reclamation via the Artists Way, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity I am encouraged to make Art Dates with myself. Now granted I have been quite slack about following the book to the letter beyond doing my morning pages. I am quite diligent about those because I am experiencing a daily benefit from them and what am I if not driven by pleasure, results and warm feelings of virtue. I get the morning pages. The Art Dates are another thing. I took one a few months back and went to Seattle to see the Hatch Show Print Exhibit which was inspiring. I have been taking time to read which feels artful and I even did a little painting last week which also felt good. But I am really not sticking to this commitment of the weekly Art Date very rigorously. Today will be different.

Because I make my living being creative it is hard to make the jump from art for commerce to art for spiritual enlightenment. It seems a bit trite, a tad goofy. But, as the book points out, this is my censor's voice talking. The voice that has convinced me that nurturing this part of me is unimportant. So today I am having an Art Date to show that inner voice who's boss. When I started the morning pages I drew this picture, and it was cathartic. I hadn't drawn a picture in a really long time. Then I thought I wanted to make it really big and paint it. Several months ago I bought a big roll of paper, 10 yrds of the stuff and it has been sitting in my office unused. Sometime a few weeks ago I took the first step and I cut off a big piece and a week later I had Mark help me move a sheet of plywood over to my office, I had the idea I would put the paper on the wood like an easel. It's a big sheet. Do you see how simple logistics can derail someone from their path to creativity?

I have decided that today is the day I will make marks on the paper. I am astounded by how long it has taken me to get to this point. Logostics handled, there is the issue of the drawing itself. It's not quite a heart with wings but it's along those lines of art made by girls searching for something, and I will avoid barfing up all the negative adjectives about it before I move on to doing it. A little back story here. I was once married to an artist who was written up (favorably) in several national magazines, he successfully exhibited his work in LA and NYC. I have travelled in what was recognized as the real circles of contemporary art in America. I have met many famous artists and many very wealthy collectors, I know what real art is and yet here I am dabbling with pencil, paper and paint as a way of saving my soul. But! I am undeterred because the book tells me to do it and I will, I must.

I see the drawing as a diagram of myself, not really a portrait but a map of who I am, where I have been and most importantly where I want to go. My spiritual path to higher creativity complete with huge hair and bare breasts. Go figure.