Creating a Life I love Through Art
Here is a piece I am in the middle of working on. I did this one a little different, and started drawing with the color first. It’s so much fun and my hand is lusciously cramping… Ahhhhh I love feeling it in my body.
Is it really art if I’m just allowing my hand to create without my head?
I’ll post it when it’s finished! xo
Oh Wow!! I’ve seen this girls work for years but didn’t remember her name. Check out her site, I’m blown away. I’m not usually a floral kinda girl, but I love the magnitude! It’s making my face explode.
In a good way.
Check it out!
https://www.instagram.com/adrianapicker/
One of the things I know I need no matter what,
is to create.
If I’m feeling full of joy, I still long to make things. If I’m having a hard time, there is almost nothing I want to do more than sit down with a cup of tea and get lost in a doodle or drawing.
It’s funny, the more that I’m serious about FINISHING pieces, the more I’m craving to curl up and play with my art journal. The place that doesn’t need to look ‘done’ ever. Because it never is.
Here’s something I’ve been working on the last couple of days. Ahhhhh I could do it all day long!
Today is my official ‘Remain Curious’ day.
For New Years 4 months ago, my official word for the year was ‘Curious.’ I had dedicated it to just. being. curious. It’s okay to get excited about NEW ADVENTURES and EXCITING CHANGE and become PASSIONATE and ALIVE! But! It doesn’t need to be the end all. I can just be curious, check it out. Leaving the f**kin pressure behind!
It’s easy for me to get a little off track as the months roll by, so this morning I’m bringing myself back.
Instead of stressing out and feeling shame and blame and lots of have to’s, I’m going to remain curious,… with everything.
What is it I’m feeling?
Could I try out that new idea and see where it leads? It’s okay if it doesn’t work, but it might be fun!
What do I need?
What is my heart saying?
There is no have to, there is no SHOULD. I’m just allowing curiosity to move through my body. And it feels like such an easier way to live! Ha! I’ve made my life way harder than it needed to be.
And so, to all of you out there,.. I’m sending you all lots of love and hoping that you too are discovering little life hacks of your own, that make your life MORE FUN, MORE RELAXING, MORE DELIGHTFUL in every way.
xo
Here’s to the bursting buzzing excitement that is stored in all of us. The giddy deliciousness that bubbles over into explosive gasping pieces of joy like confetti in a windstorm.
Here’s to the fire pulsing at the bottom of our guts vibrating, moving, seething,.. ready to boil over.
And the hot sticky tears, overwhelmed with laughter!
Ahhhh!! Passion!
After a bunch more hours and hundreds of new lines,.. I am finished! I really enjoyed making this piece. In hindsight there were probably much quicker ways to get the same results but that’s okay! Trial and error, right? I’m liking the contracting colors but it’d be fun to put into Photoshop and change everything up. Hmmm!!
So one of the things I’m super fascinated with is microscopic photos of cells. Ahhhh!! I want to paint them!! I’ve seen some amazingly detailed pictures of flower and plant cells and have been planning on creating something that is inspired by that. Though I still may do that, I stumbled upon something sooooooooooooooooooooo freakin cool.
I loved Neuropsychology and Molecular Biology and at one time thought maybe I’d become a college professor to teach this stuff. I was so unbelievable fascinated! Well….. I happen to come across photos of oxytocin, and adrenaline under a microscope. Ahhhh!
And! Human body cells,… like heart, skin, and embryos! Oh my gosh I can barely breathe, I’m so excited. What if I created pieces based on these??? Wow. Finding similarities between the microscopic photos so they create a sort of story or message,.. like the heart cells interwoven with oxytocin… Or heart, skin and brain.
Ahhhh! I just needed to get this out there. My heart is beating so fast. ahhah!!
Okay okay I’ll post when I have something.
xo
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.
Here is a new piece I’m working on. The more I play with it, the more I like it I kinda like the different shades of orange and blue moving together.
It feels like an intergalactic universe, where everything is connected to each other. Like life I guess. I love learning about all the energy that bounces off of us from person to person, or how intuition creeps into us from a visceral level. We are all so connected to each other and the universe. Ah!
I usually do pieces like this with only black ink, so it’s really fun to be playing with color.
I’m finally sitting here at my little laptop ready to WRITE. Finally. It’s been so long! And actually it’s felt like forever since
I’ve MADE ART.
I went from driving many hours to a wonderful party in Los Angeles to a couple of days back home sorting through life stuff. Sometimes this happens, right? Days go in ways we don’t expect, and routine gets flipped around. But I have so missed writing my daily posts.
I think what I’m recognizing is that I am so much better at being easy on myself. It’s been an excruciatingly long month with so many stressful things happening, and lots of gory feelings exploding all over the place, and lots of places where cobwebs are literally falling out of the shadows.
When I’d go through things like this in the past, I’d feel so much SHAME and wonder WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??
I should be able to handle this! I should be STRONGER BETTER FASTER more amazing than I am.
I SHOULD BE DIFFERENT.
Through the years, through the work I’ve been doing on myself, those voices still come up but they are softer, and they are way more in the background then they used to be. In fact, I can point them out! I can call them to the front of the classroom and tell them their help is no longer needed.
Now, I am in charge.
Because the last week has been again so much learning and growing and aching and changing,…
What is the most loving thing I can do for myself?
I can make art.
Sunshine and Cerulean 