But today, I paint. I will go to class at the studio of a dear artist friend and mentor, Susan Fryer Voigt. (Check out her work by clicking on her name. The photos are not her work, nor are they mine.) Amazing artist. There, I will give myself permission to get lost in creation, making love to the color. There, I don't have distractions and my books can't call out to me to help them be seen, help them exist. They might be calling out, but I am too far away and can't hear them. For a few hours, I become who I have always been from the beginning of my creation. A conduit for the creative force through color.
It is an odd life to be called by the color. No one gets it except other artists. No matter what else you are doing at any given moment, the deepest part of your soul longs to be united with your paints; your brush. For an artist, that is the only time that they are fully alive. Then and during orgasm, which is the closest any of us get to our spirituality while here on earth. We die for a brief moment during that release (the French call it the "little death") and when an artist is one with the color, their mortal self dies for a little while, too.
That union, that bliss, cannot be denied forever. My easel sits with my latest work in progress (not this photo) out where I constantly see it. I hope that I will take more time to enter that nirvana if I constantly am called...but other things have to be done. Like trying to find a way to make a little income by writing. And so it sits, impatiently waiting, wondering why we only have an occasional fling when we both know it is my deepest love.
Reality makes it so. Don't get me wrong. I love to write. It is enjoyable and I have fun with it. I am good at it. It is also a long shot at providing any sustainable income, but less so than painting. Since I have already spent most of my life working at careers that don't fulfill my calling, I have decided to try to make a go of it. It takes time and luck and LOTS of work. I might fail in the end. Writers, like painters, are as common as dust on my coffee table. But at least I am finally trying.
In the meantime, my lover waits. Color knows no sense of time. It just knows when we are apart and when we become one. When we merge, I understand what it means to fly. My deepest love, how I wish we could be one all of the time. This love is different than the love of another person. This is the love of the force that made you. This is that force speaking through your hand. It is ecstasy.
But today, I paint.
No comments:
Post a Comment