Creating a Life I love Through Art
I have this special thing with maps. I love the intricate lines and the way the streets overlap each other. I’ve been making these map drawings for quite awhile and now I’d really like to somehow base them on a city. Usually I just draw whatever my hand wants to draw, but I wonder if I were looking at a city map of San Diego, or LA, while I was doing this what would happen. Hmmm Maybe I’ll give it a try!
What do you think?
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
I have this extreme love/hate relationship with this hardcore yoga class called yoga sculpt. The temperature is turned up so high your body begins dripping with sweat, and then along with some yoga moves, you are pumping iron
WITH WEIGHTS.
The first time I did it I ended up stopping in the middle, totally done, gasping for breath on the floor and thought I was going to die. Seriously. I have worked out my entire life and yet this is the absolute hardest class I have ever done.
Now this is where things get interesting. Sure the class is hard, sure it’s like a fucking nightmare, lez be honest. But it does end! The intervals end, the downward dogs end, the horrible squats, all end.
It was a habit of mine for most of the time I was in this class to STOP when it got horrible. My chest starts burning, and my limbs shake so hard I think they will fall off, and there is so much sweat on my face that my contacts are swimming. So I would stop.
I started to believe that I COULDN’T go on.
Stopping became a habit.
And then I realized something.
I’m stopping before the miracle even happens. I’m stopping when it gets tough, when I feel super uncomfortable,..
I was outta there.
This didn’t just happen in yoga for me, it was like my whole life was laid out on the mat.
I’VE DONE THIS BEFORE IN SO MANY AREAS OF MY LIFE.
Life gets horrible, or feels nearly impossible and I checked out.
So what if I start to do things differently in this yoga class? Maybe there’s a chance that I start to become more aware of it in my life. What I have also realized is that it’s okay to slow down. What if instead of STOPPING, I get really present and breathe in compassion and MOVE SLOWER,
BUT DON’T STOP?
I’m not always perfect about this little tweak. Sometimes I still get so mind bobblingly ill that I have to stop, and that is okay. But I would say in general I push myself more.
Isn’t this true about LIFE? All parts of LIFE? Creating art or having relationships or finding a great job or doing really anything? If we QUIT when it hurts or feels yucky, what happens? We miss out. The art won’t get looked at, we won’t get that great job, we won’t work out relationship issues,
NOTHING WILL CHANGE.
I’m focusing on slowing down if I need to, but NOT STOPPING. I can do this, I can get through life (and HORRIBLY AMAZING yoga). There is always an ebb and flow, and it always gets better. I can do this, and so can you. We can move through even when it’s hard.
I just so happened to be browsing through Instagram when I found this frickin’ cool ass artist. He does a lot of mountainesque paintings, and a lovely large collection of astronauts, among other things. He’s very painterly, and his brush strokes are jagged up close and yet very refined far away. I love how so many different colors show up in his work. It feels very detailed and yet sort of blurry and pixelated, like a dream.
Check it out: http://www.michaelkagan.com/
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
Sunshine and Cerulean 