Creating a Life I love Through Art
Oh my gosh. I just found this incredible artist on Pinterest. Ah! Wow! Look at these ephemeral paper sculptures, they look absolutely otherworldly. Love the delicateness, and the uniqueness. They feel so organic and alive! Wow!! Soo inspired!!
Check it out:
For years I knew I wanted to do super awesome things and for some reason I thought they were literally going to be dropped on my porch. Like someone would maybe even stop me on the side of the road and say, “Excuse me, are you Jackie? We have an exciting life for you! Just follow me!”
Obviously that didn’t happen, but I spent a lot of time WAITING FOR IT.
I knew the things I sorta kinda wanted but my FEAR was way too great to do anything physical about it.
Slowly through the years I’ve realized a bit about getting what we want. Even if we have the best intentions for receiving the life we want, but we refuse to take any risks at all,.. WE WON’T GET IT. We won’t.
If we refuse to quit the job that is draining the life out of us, or say no way to standing up for ourselves, or taking a class to learn a new skill we have really been wanting,.. if we aren’t willing to RISK, and to be BRAVE,….
WE. WILL. NOT. CHANGE.
I’m totally in my element now, making art. Making art for me, isn’t a risk, it’s a necessity. But I am DEFINITELY making sure to take little risks everyday.
Here are the risks I’ve been taking lately:
With each of these circumstances, my heart starts racing, my palms get sweaty, I feel nauseous and fiercely anxious. None of them are easy for me. And yet,… I know that this is where I will grow. I think back to all the times that I thought I might take a jump and then quickly replaced that thought with this one:
‘That sounds really scary, I think I’ll wait until I’m braver.’
I realize now, that we don’t just become brave. Bravery doesn’t just appear so the jump is easier.
If we jump scared, then we grow into being brave.
Before I started this blog,
before I was waking up every morning excited to create ART,
I was attempting to get a couple other business ideas going. I’ve always been severely passionate about many things and it seemed like I could swing quickly from one idea to another.
This would cause a lot of stress for me. I thought I SHOULD have been the kind of person that decided what I wanted to do at 18, went for it, and then that would be my life.
Life wasn’t like this for me at all. I have been all over the map! I’ve had plenty of corporate jobs with sales and recruiting and marketing and customer service. (I secretly wished I loved them enough for them to be ENOUGH), and then I’ve also had different kinds of jobs off the normal job scale, working for a spiritual healer, and in a trendy shop in Venice, California. Jobs that seemed kinda kick back and not very ambitious. And yet, I learned parts of myself that I didn’t know existed. As I look back, any of these jobs that I had where I was working FOR someone, no matter what they were, they were based on providing me with either enough resources to make art, or time to do it.
All of that is fine, except that I judged myself horribly for this. I thought “What is wrong with you, Jackie, that you need to create?” “Can’t you just find a CAREER and stick to it?”Even though my heart LONGED to create, I felt like needing to make art, was kind of in the way.
Life would be easier if I was simpler.
It’s funny that I’ve longed to have one career, when I know many people change what they are doing or wanting to do throughout their lives. But we are always evolving anyway, so it makes sense that how we want to show up in the world changes as well.
So back to my own businesses I was in the middle of… They were based on things that I like, and one was even concepts that I was PASSIONATE about; when I was working in a corporate setting. And yet, the actual work, the planning workshops, the research, not that horrible, but not super fun. The whole time I was doing this WORK for these businesses, I secretly wanted to be making art. Isn’t that funny?
And then I realized:
I decided to do these other businesses because I thought they would MAKE MONEY. And then if I was successful enough, maybe
I’D HAVE TIME TO MAKE ART.
What I really wanted to do,…
WAS MAKE ART.
It’s always always been that, but because I didn’t trust that I’d be taken care of, that I have been given these gifts for a reason, I’ve searched for YEARS to find JOBS and my own BUSINESSES that will give me the joy and fulfillment that art does.
So there’s been this part of me that feels embarrassed that I’ve changed my mind so many times, and yet,.. as I look at it, I haven’t changed my mind at all. I’ve known all along that I wanted to make art, I just didn’t allow myself to do it.
Yet another lesson I’m seeing, is to use the gifts that I have been given to create the life that my soul longs for. I am doing that! I am starting to believe that the more I fill my heart with love and do things that genuinely bring me joy, the more the right people, the right situations will find me.
I was talking to my hubby this morning. We have both been in the middle of an emotional upheaval and have felt so drained. I was telling him that lately I’ve just felt so tired, just longing to be back in bed, curled up.
I really dislike this feeling. Now I know when life is emotionally and mentally exhausting, it’s important to sleep. I got it. But I’ve had ENOUGH of that.
What I’ve realized about myself, is that if I’m not in a place of passion, I tend to get tired more quickly.
When I’m MAKING ART, and WRITING BLOGS and bubbling over with enthusiasm, I don’t need so much sleep. I jump out of bed at 4:30am, buzzing to create. My day is full of visions of what to make next, or the waves of paint swelling on my paper. I spend my time relishing what I’m grateful for and knowing that life is bringing me what is best for me. I am kind, I am fun, I am playful and silly and feel beautiful.
It’s not MORE sleep that I need, it’s taking a huge messy bite out of PASSION. Ah!
How can I get back to passion when I’ve been handling life stuff for so many days?
I was cruisin’ through Instagram and came across these wild mandalas. Marianne is a brilliant artist with an eye for detail. Wow!
Wow! What a weekend! This is the first one in a long time that actually FELT like a weekend. Know what I mean?
Sometimes we have these ridiculously stressful weeks and then convince ourselves that the weekend will be the time to finally really relax, and yet it becomes just another couple of days where we are running around stressed out chasing the feeling of relief.
This has been a huge part of my life lately. My hubby and I have had some pretty stressful, exhausting things going on with the kids and his ex-wife. So we have done what any concerned, aware, loving parents would do,..
we’ve talked about it obsessively.
I think in my head, I felt that if we aren’t talking about the issues over and over and over again until they are SOLVED, then we must be:
Living under a rock
Hiding
Avoiding
Afraid.
So,.. I pushed it. All the time, with no break. Anytime we saw each other we would start talking about these extremely heavy, exhausting PROBLEMS, ISSUES.
Isn’t that what we are supposed to do?
But they didn’t get any better. I realized that I was so drained, emotionally, mentally and physically, but
THE ISSUES STILL REMAINED.
I started to not feel particularly close to my hubby. I didn’t feel at all at peace. I didn’t feel full of energy, and I wasn’t noticing things I am grateful for.
Once we both discussed our feelings about all of this,
something magical happened.
We got a fuckin’ BRILLIANT idea. I think it’s the best we have had all year.
If talking about certain things is exhausting, and yet to some extent we still need to do it, why not create a schedule where it’s okay to do it in?
So here’s the deal: We decided that Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5pm -6pm is our talk time about the difficult stuff.
NO MORE THAN THAT.
Can I even tell you what this has done to our lives! We have only been doing it for 5 days, and all ready I feel like a completely different person. I am lighter and happier and more joyful and so so grateful! I feel like I have my wonderful relationship back to where it was.
And I realized something else.
Before, I felt like if I WASN’T talking about the difficult stuff 24/7, then I was avoiding. But now, since there is a PLAN, a SYSTEM, I don’t feel that way at all!
I feel in control of my life.
So this situation reminded me that I am in control. It’s MY happiness, it’s MY joy, it’s MY life. I can make choices on when and who I want to discuss personal stuff with. And so far, I must say our schedule is
LIFE CHANGING.
This weekend was unbelievably connecting and fun and playful and open and I am so in love. We gave ourselves a much needed EMOTIONAL BREAK! Yesssssssssssssss!!
Sooooo grateful for intuition!!
Happy Monday! xo
I was browsing through Instagram, like I do,..
When I came across this frickin’ cool artist, Dan Lam.
Check out these funky town blobs and drips! Ha! https://www.instagram.com/sopopomo/
What a crazy fun kick ass artist. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy
This morning while I was taking a shower, I was thinking about what to write today.
My love of almond butter?
My attempts at shutting up my super loud, (sorta cute) kitten from meowing me off a ledge?
My present situation with my step children?
My sudden 80’s ballad outbursts?
On one hand, I’m really enjoying getting down my thoughts about life and art and my kitten,.. hahah And yet on another hand, it feels really really yuckily self indulgent.
Normally, if you’d met me in real life, I would tell you less about myself, and I’d be asking a lot of questions. I am very fascinated by people and want to know ALL. OF. IT.
You know what I’d like to do? I’d really like to have a creativity circle where everyone comes, brings the thing they are working on, we each take turns discussing our FEELINGS and our FEARS and we RELISH in the fact that we GET TO CREATE. We can all hear and SUPPORT and VALIDATE each other. Ah!
Doesn’t that sound amazing?
Thank you for making me an artist. Ahhhh
In this crazy, buzzy world it’s been so easy to get anxious about TIME. The day is moving away from me, I didn’t get this done or that or that or that! How frickin’ mind boggling! The day would leave me gasping for breath, unfunctionable and drained.
I’m looking in my art journal right now and it’s full of designs, doodles to try on a larger scale, tiny pen marks that excite me and make me hungry to create. Now, in the past I would see this as something I need to do NOW. RIGHT NOW. LIKE NOW NOW.
But really, the more that I spend time MAKING WORK, the more TIME I realize it actually takes for each piece to make it the way I want it.
The more that I am starting to
CHILL THE FUCK OUT.
Like seriously. I thought I was a pretty chill laid back chic before, but that was only because it was when I was relaxed that I was even aware. I have NOT been relaxed in my life. I’ve been a HARD CORE, FINGER PICKING, STRESS FACE. And you know what, it’s not that great. I didn’t feel great about myself. I didn’t feel strong or magical or at peace. AT all. So I’m not gunna do it anymore.
What is the most loving thing I can do for myself.
Make some fuckin art.
Sunshine and Cerulean 