Painting In The Life Lab

8"x8" The Ocean Has Stories To Tell (available on etsy)

I have been painting away without that much to show for it.  And that has become okay for me.  Big lesson for the art materialist!!  It seems we like to have something to show for our time. Our cultural and educations system encourage this, don't you think?  It seems I have relieved a lot of internal pressure by moving from a place of feeling frustrated about this lack of output (where I spent a lot of last year) to being okay with just being with the process.  And it seems I had to go through that frustration to get there.  As my old Zen teacher would say, "it's not on our timelines.  We do our work and then let go."  And that allows things to shift on their own.

My painting sessions work  best when I settle myself first with some meditation or sitting before I jump in.  If I am too quick to pick up the brush I end up mucking about.  Painting is so akin to spiritual practice.  I mean it's the same in life. If I jump into something without the ground of awareness firmly gathered around me, I tend to muck about and potentially get in trouble in one way or another.  The good thing about trouble or mucking is that once you recover your awareness it's always instructive!

The other thing I've noticed as I  spend a lot of time in the studio is that I have "go to" things that I do on a canvas.  How much like the rest of life is this??  Habit. I have painting habits that have evolved and they don't always serve me well.  It can be like the definition of insanity "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."  So sometimes I find it's good to change up the surface I work on or the colours I favour, or the time of day I work. This movie about Gerhard Richter is really interesting if you work in abstraction.  Even he gets mucking about and finds himself painting over and over things that don't quite seem right. It's a great watch.  He says things like, "sometimes I like a painting for a day or two" and "I know when something is done, it just feels right."

8"x8" cold wax on canvas "The Forest Has Wings"

I've been listening to a lot of Tom Campbell lately. He's a Nasa physicist with some very interesting ideas about consciousness and reality. He says we're all evolving toward love which is the highest form of being.  Kind of interesting for a scientist, don't you think? He says things like our human existence is a kind of learning lab and that we are always evolving (or dying), that there is no static state.  This idea is pretty akin to the Buddhist idea of impermanence.  There is also a great talk by scientist, Rupert Sheldrake here (Sheldrakes talk is the second one on this link) where he expresses some pretty interesting ideas about the nature of consciousness.  It seems these ideas have caught my interest as an explanation to how things work out there in the world and beyond. It offers a new relationship to the world around us. The world of the paranormal and the normal are actually not separate.  For these guys the world of the paranormal is not crazy and unexplainable.  They make perfect sense of it. It all fits together, just as we imagined it should; and has some interesting implications for what we do and how we do it.

As always life is deeply spiritual experience for me.  I listened to a great talk via "The Awakening Joy" course by Zen Hospice leader, Frank Ostaseski.  It reminded me how easily and habitually I steel myself against what I don't like with "resistance".  How subtle resistance can be.  Often I find that in trying to fix or heal some health issue I am subtlely resisting it. I just want it to go away!  Non resistance doesn't preclude trying to work with problems, it just means we also need to be with them.  Sometimes the solution is contained in the problem itself, well maybe always??  And how can we find it if we are so busy pushing it away (says she as she talks to herself) He pointed out the simple maxim of"what we resist, persists."

Oh and in case you are inclined, like so many of us, to say unkind things to yourself, you might enjoy watching Kristin Neff's TED talk on self compassion.  That's all I know for today! Have a great weekend.

Trust & Asking

If you haven't seen this TED talk by Amanda Palmer, you absolutely must. Okay, you don't have to but I swear, your missing something if you don't.  Especially if you're an artist because she plays with the concept of how an artist makes a living. By happenstance and personal awareness Amanda fell into a relationship of "trust" and "asking" with her audience.  She found that the people who loved her music were willing to support her in a monetary way, especially when her record label cut her for selling the small sum of 25,000 records.  So now she gives away her music and asks people to support her, 2 separate acts, instead of the one that we usually associate with making a living in the arts: you buy something and pay for it.  She's raised a million bucks this way!  Awesome, yes?

But that got me thinking about visual art and if somehow her brilliant paradigm could translate into offering visual art to audiences in the same way?  So I'm tossing this question out into the stratosphere.  Is there a way this might work for visual art?  What are your thoughts on the subject?  Really, I want to know.  Because I love this idea.

First my little mind goes, well there's the material and the shipping.  But you know Amanda Palmer had to invest a huge wack of money to record her music, and then there's the hours of creation that went into it. It's a big leap, believing in yourself and trusting that others will also believe in you enough that you can continue to do your creative work.

I love the idea of doing something that goes against how our consumer culture is structured.  I love the idea of trusting people.  I love the idea of connection with our audience, whatever the medium.  I love the idea of feeling that people support each other.  Is that fairy tale stuff, people?  Am I related to Peter Pan or some other ethereal character with wings?? Or perhaps that's Polyanna leaning over my left shoulder?

Journey 6"x6" on etsy

There is  a lovely young man who does some heavier work for us around our property and when we first met him we asked what do you charge.  He said, well you pay what you think it's worth.  And you know, we probably always pay more than the going hourly rate.  And we think fondly of him, we think of him as generous and trustworthy.  We know that we are supporting him and his family and it makes us feel good at the end of the day when we hand over a little pile of bills!  We never imagine that he isn't working hard enough or that he's adding in a little time here and there, or that we aren't getting our money's worth.  It's weird, but then so is the way our minds work.  There is something about this "trust" that makes us all feel good and empowered.

oil, cold wax on paper, 8"x10" on etsy

So my mind is turning these things over, sifting through the ideas, following the threads of each loosely woven thought.  There is something about these ideas that carry the scent of the new economy on the breeze. The potential for change, for growth and evolution make me feel excited and hopeful. There is a spiritual aspect to this way of exchanging creative life for monetary support; one that embodies faith, trust and connection.  Am I crazy?  Is this possible?  And if so how do we express it?  Where do we pick up the thread?

I am working on it and if I wake up with any fully hatched brilliance I will let you know.  Last night I woke up from a dream where I'd been bitten by a small copper coloured reptile.  But that's another story.  I'll save it for next time.

This Mysterious Thing

What is a life? This mysterious thing we possess, given to us without asking, without instructions. This quivering mass of flesh cast into a place alive with chaos and joy and danger, with it's own momentum, with it's own sweet and terrifying signatures. Do we live it on auto pilot like the one in my gas stove, always lit just a little, burning a low flame?

Where does the journey of our heart meet the road map of the soul? Can I really taste, see, feel? I mean deeply, in some way that passes through this paper thin skin into the deep parts of me that are ready to lap it up, that are waiting to experience the richness and terror of being alive, unprotected, unmitigated, Open.

This thing I call my life seems stitched together by bits of everyday experience:  a chance meeting here, a movie, a piece of art, a song, a bar of soap. Occasionally insights bubble up from the deep well of knowing that lives inside me, and I say, ah I see now. Something inside me is ignited and I see motives, and maps and visions of possibility. I see tiny keys to doors locked somewhere deep inside some past me, some future me, some simmering me.

Sometimes I think my heart has been locked inside an armoured car for years and then mysteriously it is set free by a song. Sometimes it seems I can hardly feel anything and then a friend pulls me into a gallery and we understand how strength and vulnerability are interwoven, as we gaze on a sculpted face.  Sometimes just when I think I can never really know another being, someone stirs me with a story of how they died on an operating table and came back to life. Sometimes when I'm thinking it is too hard to be alive I am offered a parent's story of navigating the churning waters of a child's addiction without a compass.

Here are the bits that have been flavouring the rich, vital and surprising broth that is my recent life.  Tell me what fantastic journeys your life is taking you on these days? We are travelers without a map, following the gulf winds of our hearts. Wishing you a wondrous journey that opens your heart and affords you good passage. And always we know there are no safe passages through the straits and isthmus of an authentic life.

I am smitten by the integrity, purity and commitment to supporting the environment and traditional cultures of the personal care products at Sinfully Wholesome.


I have been singing with joy at the dignity of the human spirit after watching the documentary "Searching For Sugarman"


I have been gobsmacked and mesmerized by the beauty and serenity of the sculpture of local artist Lynn Demers.

And I have been tantalized by the fermented creations I've been conjuring up in the kitchen: kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi and pickled ginger. Looking forward to making some sourdough and other goodies when I get my copy of Sandor Katz "The Art of Fermentation"

Oh yeah, and there's been some art but that's for next time.

Noticing Things

Weather Map of The Heart 12"x12" cold wax on canvas

I have been noticing things, things like how much I want from a moment, just a single innocent moment. When I sit, if I am honest with myself, I see the long slender digits of desire greedily fingering the air. I want this moment to be a certain way. I might want it to make me happy or entertain me, make me feel safe or comfortable or offer me a little drama so that I might escape from the boredom of a grey February morning.

All this wanting and noticing is like what is happening in the kitchen of a fine dining restaurant while you sit out front sipping wine and chatting.  But when I sit quietly in the kitchen of my mind, I see how much I try to cook the moment so as to make its flavour just right for me. I am kneading and pulling on each little fibre of now.

I also notice how I am not content to just work the moment but I lean anxiously into the future looking for the next moment or hour to please me, seeing what I might wring from the day. If we are honest we can notice how much we "want" without pause:  how we want things to be easy or simple or sweet, people to cooperate with and like us, how it would be nice to get some good news or a special treat.  Fill in the blanks. And with all the wanting I notice what it stirs: agitation, busy mind, nervous energy. I notice all these underlying weather patterns of my heart and mind when I am quiet. If I weren't sitting in meditation they would simply form the ground which the day travels over.

All this noticing reminds me to stop, to take a breath and just be. I remember how pleasant it is to just be right here, right now, without wanting.  And I notice how hard this is, how the momentum of habit has hardwired wanting into my brain.  I notice how much energy is preserved, even cultivated in this state of not wanting, how my heart sighs in relief when I am simply with life as it is.  I notice the startling and mysterious sound of rain drops plopping into the pond as I make my way around the shore. I am gobsmacked by the chartruesey greenness of the moss on the roof.

As I did a drawing exercise from my Frederick Franck book the other evening I notice how hard it  is to really see.  As I drew a small fallen leaf from my indoor ficus tree, I notice how my mind jumped ahead to fill in the lines with how it imagined the leaf looked.  I noticed how hard it was to slow down and simply see, to let the hand follow the eye. The mind is such an impatient, bossy creature!

So in between noticing things, I have been making my own cold wax with gamsol and beeswax. It smells divine, sweet like the beeswax (even though the gamsol is a petroleum based product). This seems much more do-able for me than the orange oil solvent which was a natural product, but intensely smelly. Turpentine is a natural product and also intensely smelly.

I have been doing an online course with Eric Maisel which is essentially coaching for artists. I am liking it a lot.  It deals in this lovely straight forward way with how to actually get down to work, how to deal with some of the unhelpful self talk that can surround the creative process and lots of helpful info on working with stress and anxiety and thoughts about marketing.

I have been listening to the World Tapping Summit!  Have you heard of tapping or EFT.  It uses meridian points (as in acupuncture) paired with some statements around things that might be issues for us; health issues, emotional issues.  I am finding it really interesting and it feels like there's something to it.

And thanks to Eric Maisel I have actually been painting everyday, first thing in the morning that's the trick.  I have some coffee, do my qi gong, make my juice and go off to paint for a while. January has flown by and now February is blasting through. I hope your winter days are rich and filled with inner and outer adventure! Where has this new year carried you off to?

Confessions, Wrestling & Clean Drawers

Pixies reading "A Mythic Life" by Jean Houston

Confessing your sins to others is a compassionate act, don't you think? There is strange kindness in it. It's like an offering of sorts. I mean your confession is a comfort to other sinners, right? You let them know they're not alone in their transgressions.

Hold on a fundamentalist minute, in Buddhism we don't have sins or sinners, do we? But it's a cultural context that's hard to escape don't you find, words like sin or confession, they're tattooed onto some hidden part of us? But I wander-- circuitously. So hard to find your way back to the point when you do that. (Note to self - wander more or less in a straight line from now on.)

But here's where I'm going.  I've been having this feeling that I didn't want to talk about and then I see one brave soul and then another, out themselves. And I stand up in my kitchen, and shout, yes, that's it. that's what's happening to me too!

Nicholas Wilton said it here. And Kris Fretheim said it over here.  And I felt so much better when I read their posts, really, I did.  I felt part of the coven, part of the secret society.

Strange frost fibers in the forest

You see, what I've been doing since this new year reared it's cheeky little head,  is cleaning and tidying my house, tossing out mounds of paper, preparing bags of things for the thrift shops. I am getting down to another layer of ruthlessness in culling "stuff".  It's good in it's own way and I was inspired by a friend who was doing some year end tossing and cleaning. It feels satisfying and freeing to have clean drawers (foolish pun intended).  But after a while I can see the devil in this work. (Goodness those Christian images are certainly busy tonight). Must have something to do with a post Christian holiday haunting?

December was mostly spent in merry making and distractions and now I have forgotten what I used to do, who I used to be.  I have no one to blame but myself, the passage of time, habit, and perhaps my own human nature.  Nicholas Wilton aptly said something like: "I feel like a stranger in my own studio." But what I sense deep in my bones is an aversion to the discomfort of facing the empty canvas; an aversion of being with the squirmy, quivering unknown. So I putter and stall. It's a common artist's tactic. When it's time to create, suddenly there are a thousand mundane tasks that need doing.  And so I wrestle with the demon of cupboard cleaning.  And I am down for the count.  He has me in a figure four leg lock, counting and sorting bits and useless pieces. And the problem is something in me knows.  Something in me cannot be fooled by all this cheery, task oriented busyness.  Something in me knows there is a great chasm between what I am doing and what I need to be doing and therein lies the angst. The truth is never far from us if we are willing to look.

But this I have learned.  It's all okay.  The stalling; it's okay for a while.  Actually it's kind of amusing and touching in a way. It's part of the game by now. And how could I ever get all this cleaning done, if I didn't have something more  important I was supposed to be doing?  How would I ever have a spotless pantry if some tender, vulnerable part of me wasn't deathly afraid of being shown up as a failure?

Buddha's Back In Town

And slowly the movie will play itself out.  Soon I will follow some inner longing down the windy stairs to the studio.  I will  poke about when I get there, maybe have a little tantrum, mess about with some things, wipe a little paint on and off a canvas, maybe fix up an old piece that is calling 911 for help.  I might tell myself I'm not really supposed to be doing this and who am I kidding anyway. And then quite by accident, when I 'm not looking I will fall into a place where things just happen, where I disappear.  And my deepest fears will be dissolved like chalk dust in a drop of wine. I will come to see that I am not as talentless and hopeless as I feared. I mean that's what it was really all about anyway, wasn't it?  Avoidance and distraction is always about that faithlessness that sneaks up on us when we're not looking.

And it's all just fine: what I'm doing now, what I'm going to do and whatever comes in between and after that. I have tidied up the drawer where the nasty words live and  I have placed my sharp tongue back in it's protective sleeve and put them both in a box marked "thrift store".  So be careful when you go shopping. You might get more than you bargained for.

Old Moon, New Adventures In Being Human

The Full Cold Moon on Dec 28th

It's new year's eve and the light is just beginning to drain from the day.  A small deer stands in the meadow down by the pond. He stares strangely toward the house of a neighbour that hunts his kind. It's a strange behaviour that I've witnessed often on our property.  Can he sense something?  What catches his attention? Am I imagining this? Or are the roosters just making noise? I really can't know, in a definitive way.

His small gesture reminds me that this year I have come to more deeply appreciate that this world is alive with energy that I cannot see, pulsing with sounds I can't hear and filled with things I cannot understand with my linear mind. In short this year has convinced me that world is a magical place, full of mystery. It is a blend of simplicity and complexity that defies wrapping it up neatly in a ball.  It is what makes life truly tantalizing.

I have learned that to live in this world with some grace it is important to be able to hold opposing thoughts in my mind. While I have learned that I am not in control of what happens, I have also learned that there is power in my intentions.  So while I can relax and not push so hard for what I "want" to happen, I can also hold the good and beautiful in my mind in an unattached way. Maybe it sounds confusing when I try to reduce it to mere words, but when I can actually live this way it is strong and powerful.

I think I was born knowing that nothing is ever wasted if you learn something from it, but this year I've bumped up against this one in ways that have left me bruised and scraped and deeply humbled. I'm not at all as nice as I hoped I was.  Perhaps I need to get a dog so I can see myself through her eyes, but alas I am a cat person.  I've learned that anger can bubble up like a mad cauldron and that it can be hard to keep from getting burnt and burning others with it's fire.  And sometimes you just need to see those glowing embers to really get it. I've learned how tangled up with expectation, attachment, hurt and self protection, anger can be.

I've learned that so much hinges on gratitude and intention.  I've learned that I need to remind myself of that everyday, that I have the choice, to lift 5 lbs of gratitude each morning or let the muscle atrophy out of neglect. I've learned how these feelings inspire the beauty of the day to smile back at me.

And I hope I've learned a smidge about kindness and compassion. I hope that sometimes when people say or do something that seems unkind that I recall my own less than stellar behaviour and am reminded that we are all riding in the same leaky little boat.

And I have learned that sometimes I have more choices than I think, that I can find a creative solution when I think I feel like I'm backed into a corner. I like to think I have learned just a little more this year how to follow that still, small voice inside.

moon through rain on the window

So I would just like to say thank-you to 2012 for being such a rich year, full of learning and magic and beauty, peppered with the inevitable sadness that comes from living a life here on earth.

I wish you all a new year of great joy and health, filled with all the beauty this world has to offer (and a few excellent adventures). May you venture out past your comfortable boundaries, may you have some deeply satisfying conversations, may you enjoy the warmth of interesting humans and animals. May the sun of 2013 warm your bones and the breezes blow sweetly through your hair. May you be fully alive. These are my wishes for you as you step with gusto into another new year.

Plowing The Neural Pathways and Opening The Heart

Continents of the Heart 24"x 24" oil, cold wax, earth pigments

I don't really have much to add to the general conversation out there so I've been tending the fire and making cookies and being quiet. There's lots to make our heads spin these days, lots to sink our worrying minds and sharp teeth into: abuses of power in places we think it shouldn't exist, guns, apocalypses of one sort or another, holiday madness or gladness, depending on how you slice it.  Lots to leave us wracked and soaked and bitter and curdled (hm sounding a bit like my Christmas pudding)

In the end, for me, it's all about how it settles in the heart.  What trails and paths are etched there in the neural backroads of my brain? What journey do I choose wittingly or out of habit? Do I retrace the slippery old paths of anger and disgust, contempt and self righteousness? Or do I slip of down a green trail into the forest to nurture my heart, wondering what I can add to the world?

A quote by Ethan Nichtern reminds me of which trail to take when I come to a fork in the road: "Setting clear intentions is so important. Most of the time, we get stuck, not because we have bad intentions, but because we just have no idea what our intentions actually are."

I've been liking this "shift thing" that's going on out there. I'm liking the picture of indigenous people showing the "civilized world" how to save the planet and regain a sane relationship to it. Don't laugh, stranger things have happened and you've been watching them courtesy of the media.  I've been watching some of the goings on down in South America and listening to people like Bruce Lipton and Tom Campbell who make the scientific leap that it's all about love, that the mind is a powerful tool for healing, that energy is real and this world is a place of great beauty and mystery.  Yeah, you might think it sounds like I've fallen on my head, but sometimes that's what it takes to knock out the old to make room for the new.

The Heart of Winter 12"x12" oil, cold wax, earth pigments

And seeing as it's gift giving time here in the western world, here's a quote from Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche that seems like it would be a great gift to ourselves, our loved ones, and the planet.  New world, new gifts, right?  Take back that toaster, return that  fuzzy sweater.  Instead how about this, no wrapping required, satisfaction guaranteed?  "Imagine craving absolutely nothing from the world. Imagine cutting the invisible strings that so painfully bind us: what would that be like? Imagine the freedoms that come from the ability to enjoy things without having to acquire them, own them, possess them. Try to envision a relationship based on acceptance and genuine care rather than expectation. Imagine feeling completely satisfied and content with your life just as it is. Who wouldn’t want this? This is the enjoyment of non-attachment."

Sheesh, that's a lot of words for a person that had nothing to say, don't you think?