ART AND SOUL

I made the choice at 52 to walk away from the life I’d known and where I might land was entirely unknown territory. My heart was my only compass, but in order to hear it clearly, I first had to crack open the impenetrable shell. Grace led me to Art and Soul, where I began the work of excavating all that was authentically me, and removing all that wasn’t.

The beauty of Art and Soul is that it gave me the vocabulary to express the essence of my true soul, devoid of pretense and conjecture. Art is so much more than something you see. It is something you feel. And in making it, it is something you allow.

On the second night of class, we were instructed to prepare our tools to paint and to place on the wall a sheet of paper as wide as the expanse of our arms. What we weren’t told was that after all the preparation, we would be blindfolded.

That moment is the voice that speaks to me still, most every day. And that voice says, “Let go. Trust. Allow. Whatever plans you had, whatever colors you chose, whatever tools you anticipated using….Let go. Trust the process. Allow yourself to be surprised. Allow yourself to feel what it feels. Just be with it. Just be.”
Having a plan, a trajectory to reach for, has, at least to this point, been the navigation system I’ve utilized. And it ultimately didn’t work out so well for me. Yet in my stubbornness, it was what I knew and where I was comfortable, even if it led me ultimately to suffering, and circled back to suffering. The hamster wheel of suffering.
And so, to let go of what I may have planned my painting to be, and to know I had the tools at hand to create a picture but had no control of the “pretty” picture I might wish to paint, I allowed. I let it be whatever it was, even if it felt uncomfortable. Even if it was painful. Even if what I created was difficult for me to view with my eyes. It was mine. I created it.
And most of all, the tenant of everything at Art and Soul…above all else, I must not judge.
There is no good or bad, right or wrong, it simply is what it is. And whatever it is, it has something to say to me.
So, after that life altering moment, I brought my strange and very large painting home, hung it as instructed, and lived with it. I willed myself not to judge it. It took all of me, every single molecule of my being arguing with me not to find fault, not to judge. Just to bear witness.
Now, this process spills into my life, my ultimate work of art…and urges me not to judge. But rather, to trust. To paint blind and dare I even say, joyfully, with all the colors, with whatever tools. Just paint. Allow. Feel. Let go of what I think anything should be and let it be what it is.
Forget control. It hasn’t served me all that well anyway, to be honest.
I have found that when I allow myself to dare, and to trust the unfolding of the work of art that is life, I am sometimes astounded at the beauty of all I allow myself to see.
I have found that the only way through is through. The only way out for me is to dive all the way in as deep as I dare before swimming to the surface. And, that there are always deeper depths.
I have learned that everything was necessary. Every pain was necessary as well as every joy. That life is nothing without the full excruciating and vulnerable willingness to welcome life to me.

What I value about Art and Soul is that it saved my life. It helped me find a place for all the broken pieces that had become my life to spill out onto canvas. Then, to find peace, once and for all.