February 1, 2017 – What is in a name?

“The painting I finished yesterday, which I gave what feels like the most audacious title of any so far!”

“The Magnolias,” as Sue has dubbed our group of artists, are having a show at the Sausalito Presbyterian Church and in preparation, Marilee asked for help naming a painting of hers.  It’s a somewhat abstract painting of leaves in a wonderful collection of colors – Marilee’s full-spectrum palette.  My first hit was that I would not be descriptive and include the word “leaves.”  There is a soft, gentle quality to it and, if it were my painting, I’d name it something more essential – a qualitative description.  She came up with the title “Kindness” – something that we can certainly use more reminders of.  Then on Sunday, during our Painting our Prayers time, Marilee’s painting’s title came up and Jan was asked why I said this.  I loved being asked – it gave me a chance to pause and consider what is in the name of a painting, how we name them, whether to be literal or poetic, when and why.

“Marilee’s painting – Kindness”

What I saw was this:  though the visual impression is primary and most important to the viewers of our art, the names we give to our paintings can broaden, deepen and enrich their experience.  I also saw that the titles I’ve given to my paintings have undergone an evolution, just as my painting has.  The shift in how I name my paintings has reflected my stepping into being an artist and a messenger in an even more intentional and overt – even public – way.

For the first years I gave my paintings mostly descriptive titles:  Honey Bee and Rugosa Roses, Squash Blossom and Bee, Queen Anne Cherries.  Often there was another element in the description besides the thing I painted, too.  I included the weather or season to put the painting in a particular time: “Persimmon Rain,” “Persimmon Sun,” “Apricots in the Sun,” “Mid-summer Zin,” “Apple Blossom Spring,” “Rhododendron Raindrops.”  The spirit of place plays a significant part in my art – so there are those titles:  “Paris Roses,” “BJ – First Tahoe Swim,” “Tropical Peaches,” “Southside Lily Pond.”  And, people in my life have inspired titles:  “Nancy’s Rose,” “Roses for Annie,” “Twin Dahlias” (for my nieces, Nicole and Kiersten).  There is one exception to this.  In naming the painting I called “Blue Door” I could have included something about its place – a village in southwest France. But, that I didn’t turned out to be even better.  The title didn’t interfere in the imaginations of the people who were drawn to the painting.  I’ve heard different people say they see that blue door as a place in Mexico, Italy, France, Spain, Greece – Tunisia even!

I could have called “Full Circle,” one of my earliest paintings, “Roses in a Jar.”  But this one holds a special place in my body of work (it’s the only one so far that I’m certain I don’t want to ever sell) – it needed a title that would reveal this.  The name “Full Circle” is a cue to read the underlying story of how that glass jar had come into my life and what the painting symbolized to me. Others that followed in this vein were inspired by:  a song (“Touched by the Sun”), an election (“Blossoming Hope,” and by my favorite color (“A Celebration of Pink”).

When I gave a painting the title “Grace” it started what has become a “thing” for me – to find a single word that isn’t necessarily literally descriptive, which points to something beyond the visual image.  Out came:  “Awakening,” “Radiance,” “Faith” and “Hallelujah.”  I have had help from those in my life – the paintings “Dazzling,” “Ripe,” and “Luscious” were their exclamations when seeing those just-finished paintings.  These single-word titles are hard for people to connect to my paintings, but these names honor what these paintings are to me.  We are generally teasing when we say these paintings are “my babies.”  They are not living, breathing things, but they all have meaning to me – I don’t paint anything that I cannot write a story about.  And it is my experience that they are my off-spring – as they do go on to have their own lives.  Also, they each carry a particular energy, which is due an appropriate name.  In that vein, I’m glad we are given names that have meanings and that I was named Cara, (which means both dear and friend) and not “Late-autumn Dark-Haired Female.”

About five years ago I decided to challenge myself to single-word names, not just when it worked, but with every painting.  Restrictions spark creativity, so this has led to some made-up words.  (This isn’t Scrabble, so I can do that!)  As I stretch myself with these names, made up and not, I frequently feel a bit shy about the name – it can seem presumptuous or audacious.  Even so, I’m both uncertain about the name and sure that this name is the one.  After hearing it come out of others’ mouths a few times and it settles in.  The painting becomes its name to me.  “Zinoasis” was awkward at first, now this painting is an oasis of Zinfandel and there is no other name for it.

We expose ourselves when we dare to name our work like this.  People could roll their eyes or criticize, but that’s always a risk when putting ourselves out there, revealing our deeper selves to the world.  The thing is to both protect ourselves from it (don’t listen) and to develop an inner structure that is strong enough to operate in the face of the risk.  It helps to hold the point of view that feedback is 100% about the giver of it, rather than about our work.

I finished a painting a few days ago.  The title came to me when I saw the image, before I even started painting it.  I’m calling it “Beatitude,” which I learned means “supremely blessed.”  Alluding to part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount seems like a whole lot to put on to one of my paintings.  I’ve tried to shrink back from it, as it seems like the most audacious and lofty title I’ve ever given to a painting.  I shared it with Sandy Roos in yesterday’s painting group and she loved it and encouraged me to go with it.  So, I signed it and wrote “Beatitude, copyright 2017” on the back side of the paper.  It is off to be scanned and framed – no changing it now!  I’ll share the full story behind the title when I write about the painting for the gallery on my website, but the main message is that even when things are past their prime and beaten up a bit, they are very beautiful – even supremely blessed.  All this said, I’m still shaky about this lofty name!

Straight-forward, descriptive titles are fine.  Even “Untitled” is fine.  Not every one of us is called to be a messenger – or has the interest in seeing the meaning our art carries.  Regardless, there is an in-escapable essence that emanates from our souls, which is conveyed in all that we do.  This essence, as expressed in our paintings, is our visual voice.  In consciously looking “underneath the rock” for what we might be saying with this voice, we become more aware of what we are up to.  It just might show us what it is that compels us to make this art, why we spend all these hours with our brushes and paints.

Giving my paintings meaningful titles is a form of respect for what I’m up to in this life.  It has me take my art and myself more seriously.  These names are my attempt to call attention to the energy and essence in my paintings, which might increase the impact they can make.  My coach Lissa said last week she just read a book entitled “Beauty Will Save the World.” Whether I read this book or not, today just that title is enough.  It supports how vital it is that we re-orient towards beauty as a response to what is happening in the world.  Look, see if you can see what are you saying in your work?  What flavor of beauty are you orienting towards?  It’s why you are here.

With my love,

Cara

January 24, 2017 – Holding on to Humanity

“I’m swimming in pink and red paint as I work on these hydrangeas.”

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My commitment to show up here at my computer, open up Word and start writing every Tuesday morning has shifted the way I operate the rest of the week.  As I do the rest of my life there is now an observer in me, a part of me that is always on the lookout for what I might explore or even wrestle with on a future Tuesday.  So, while reading the paper on Sunday, my writer-observer noticed a connection between two things I read – one in a restaurant review and the other in a reply to a question about a film.  I saw a link between them as well as to a broader theme that has been burbling in me since the beginning of last year.  Making these connections reinforces for me why Iain McGilchrist is so fervent in making his case for resurrecting and supporting our right brained way of thinking.  I see that he is not exaggerating his claim that the future of our society depends upon it.

Here’s are the pieces I read in the San Francisco Chronicle this past weekend:

The title of Michael Bauer’s review of Motze called it more of a “food lab” than a restaurant.  He had a cup of “bay laurel, roasted to approximate the taste of hot cocoa, topped with a small dollop of kefir.”  He continued: “While it was interesting to discuss how it had a chocolate-like quality, in reality it couldn’t stand up to the real thing.”  The review ending was what really grabbed me:  “In the end, dinner at Motze left me full, but wanting; its food may be forward thinking, but is not particularly uplifting for the spirit.”

Then, in response to a question about a film that used technology to bring back the actor Peter Cushing from the dead, film critic Mick Lasalle said this:  “It’s like killing him all over again … in the sense that it re-enacts the separation the soul from the body.  And it’s an insult on top of that, because the very act of resurrecting his body without his soul suggests that we never had any use for his soul to begin with.  So, I think the practice is creepy, morally sick and obviously the wave of the future.”

These two pieces brought to mind something else that recently came to me – another gift from Krista Tippett:  her interview of Anil Dash on “tech’s moral reckoning.”  Anil Dash is a tech-entrepreneur who was one of the earliest bloggers.  He suggests that we all can contribute to the humane potential of technology:  “We’re still sounding our way through this incorporation of technology into our lives.  And it always does come down to — what are our values?  And what do we care about?  And what are the things we think are meaningful?  And then using that as a filter to understand and control and make decisions around these new technologies.  And that’s part of the reckoning I’d ask everybody who’s not in technology to have, is to raise that flag.”

I’m wondering if there isn’t a clue here in the divide that our society suffers from in this moment.  There is a contingent that thrives on the division between us in its fomenting of hate.  Our new President’s rise to power came in part by his exploiting these intense emotions, but we must not lose sight of the fact that he is spot on when he says there are good people in our country who have been left behind.  The most material and important way they have been left behind is economic – which is big and complex and likely won’t change quickly.  But I see the possibility that there is also a cultural divide that might be related to the extent to which the kind of “forward thinking” I read about in the Sunday paper can be de-humanizing – and is leaving people with the sense that they can no longer relate to this world.  I know it does me.

I’m not suggesting that we go back – I don’t think that it’s even possible, we can’t un-know anything we know.  Conveniences we enjoy are near impossible to turn away from.  And technology has also connected us in potent ways.  It’s all in how we use it.  This brings me back to what I’m learning about the left and right brain ways of thinking.  It might be worth a re-read of the comparison of traits in my post from last year to get a better sense, but basically the left brain has narrow focus, sees discrete parts and is more fixed.  The right brain sees the whole, sees more broadly and is more open.  Can you see how it appears that a lot of people on the more entrenched sides of both divisions are operating in their left-brains?

It is the right brain that is interested in what is new.  Though we don’t think of technology this way, our right brains think “outside the box” and they are what bring us the ideas for technological innovation – that the left brain then sorts out how to make work.  But then these innovations must be applied in a holistic, human-centered way or they end up being like the bay laurel “hot chocolate” or a soulless actor brought partially back from the dead.  Or – even more critically – make it easier to de-humanize someone we only experience through the characters they’ve typed, as they appear in our electronic device.

I heard a song this weekend that has not stopped playing in my head.  I’d heard it before – but it’s stirring in me now because it’s a shining example of the opposite.  Sara Bareilles has taken Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and creatively breathed fresh, new life in it.  She retains his song’s original spirit as she reveals her own soul in her version.  It’s so worth a listen.  I loved hearing Elton John give her his blessing in another video.  He said:  “I was so blown away by the version of Yellow Brick Road. I’ve never heard anyone sing any one of my songs like that – ever.  I can’t thank you enough for giving your time – and blowing my mind with that version because when someone sings your song, they usually copy you – she made it her own.  That’s brilliant.”

Fresh and new are a given, we are evolving beings, our consciousness is constantly expanding.  We are pushing the envelope of what we mean by gender, and family and community – in what and how we eat, work and communicate.  This is all good and I’m all behind it – it’s foolish and even squanders our energy to fight it.  Where I want to chime in, where I see we need to pay attention, is that we aim to start from and end with our humanity, our shared humanness, that we keep at least a bit of our awareness tuned into the fact that every single one of us has a human soul.  Every one.  And when we forget, to help ourselves remember.

There is a significant, important role for art in this remembering.  If there is a gift in the uncertainty so many of us feel, it is that the conviction to bring forth our souls – to bring forth all in us that supports life, to re-orient every day towards that which we find beautiful.  And then we must resist anything that separates us from life – including misused technology.  There is an invitation here to take our creative selves much more seriously.  I feel it.  Do you?  We must live our love and paint on.

With my love,

Cara

January 17, 2017 – What’s next?

“Promise – my little rose and Reverence – the one I just finished.”

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The last couple of weeks in our regular groups I’ve spent time with several disconcerted artists who were at a bit of a loss about what to paint next.

There are a few things I notice about what I’ve just written:  First I see that it is obvious (to us) that there is a next – another on the continuum of paintings which are coming through us.  To an artist, finishing a painting creates a space that wants for the next one to pour ourselves into.  Then, I see that the possibilities of what we could paint are literally endless – but, not just anything will do.  There must be a certain something that meets us.  It is actually registered by an instrument at the center of us whose purpose it is to recognize “our work.”  It knows whether or not this particular arrangement of shapes, colors and contrasts is worthy of spending our time on.  Lastly, we are happiest when we are working on something that does it for us.  Left wondering whether or not there is another “something” – and our artist-selves are uneasy.

Art-making is a force that takes us over.  It has its own ideas and is most satisfied when it is engaged with something that it finds inspiring, challenging or interesting.  I keep a folder on my Dropbox called “candidates.”  It’s an always-changing collection of images that my instrument saw as possibilities.  I peruse this folder when wondering what’s next.  Sometimes I feel like there are images for paintings waiting in line.  Where is the time to paint them all?  But sometimes a scan through this folder leaves me wanting for something else.  Then, it might be time to turn to my larger collection of photos and Photoshop.

In preparation for a class I’m planning on modifying photos for our paintings using Photoshop, I found dozens of Photoshop files on my computer.  These files reveal the tracks of my creative play, working to bring out the potential of an image.  I saw the hours and hours I’ve spent cutting pasting, lightening, saturating, and combining parts of multiple files.  Digital collaging has become an integral part of my process.  The traditional art world teaches students to make thumbnail sketches and black and white studies.  Though I see the value in doing this, I can’t bring myself to when I have the power of Photoshop at my disposal.

When I promised to paint every day last year, I drew a rose on a 15”x15” piece of paper and painted it using only a tiny palette with a few paints and a printed image (not looking at any electronic device).  I did this so I could work on it anytime and just about anywhere – alternating with working on my bigger paintings.  When this rose was done, I missed having a small one to work on, so I started the lavender rhododendron that I just finished last Friday.  I’m again wanting a “little” painting, so over the weekend I went on a hunt.  What follows is what came next.

I took this photo in the spring of 2015 when a bunch of us went up to the Russian River Rose Company in Healdsburg.  With all the pictures I took of showy, colorful roses and the way I love color, I’d not guess I’d have this soft, quiet rose call to me, but there it was – that “something.”  (The original image is on the left, below) I wanted another square composition, but I’d lose parts I liked if I just cropped around the rose.  The leaf cluster from the bottom, right corner came up and tucked under the rose.  And the upper left corner with sky and leaves peeking through, came down.  You can see these two parts duplicated in the right image:

Then it was ready to be cropped (below, left). And me being me, I had to bring out the color (right). I saturated the whole image, then I brought out the red (pink) and blue some more:

Next I realized that the vertical part of the rose arbor wasn’t actually vertical (about a third in from the left).  It took a bit of work to rotate it and still keep the background parts in I wanted – I had to back-track to the uncropped version and make just the rose a bit bigger.  Rotating it also had the rose hanging down more, which I liked.  The result is below, left.  Finally, I wanted to bring out some of the detail in the darks.  Especially since I am going to paint this from a printed image – darks are always darker in a printed photo.  The final image is below, right.

I am so very grateful to Steve Kimball and the time I worked for him at Light Rain.  Not only did he pass along to me the valuable knowledge of how artwork is reproduced, but he taught me how to edit photos in Photoshop – which I now could not do without.  When I first started painting I collaged images for my paintings the old fashioned way – with printed photos, scissors and tape! I go to Photoshop regularly, not only in my own work, but I often make simple changes to the images for artists in my groups. Hence, the upcoming class – we all want to be self-sufficient in our creativity.

Two recent examples of changes made under the art direction of two artists who had been at a loss as to “what’s next” (original photos on the left):

“Paulette had a rectangular piece of paper she wanted to use. But, she wanted to include the smaller flower, so we moved it down and tucked it behind the main flower. She also had me shift the color of the light green leaves on the left to make them more blue – then a final crop.”

“Sondra took this in a market in Paris on our Pilgrimage in 2015. She had me bring the flowers closer together in the middle and shift the color of the petals in the background, upper left towards pink, creating a bit more contrast. Cropping in close, leaving a few darks around the edges finished it.”

We carry around in our psyches ideas that using technology in this way is somehow “cheating.”  But the way I hold it is that we each have a line – our limit in the use of technology.  People now make art entirely with technical tools.  Using special hardware tablets and styluses and art-making programs with different brush sizes and styles, incredible art is being made – all in the digital realm.  Doing this does not really call to me – not seriously.  I want real paper and real brushes, water and paint.

When I was working for Steve, he suggested that I could use a filter to identify just the edges of my image and then send my watercolor paper through the printer to print the contours of my image, saving me the time of projecting it and using a pencil to make the drawing.  I appreciate being offered this idea – as it pointed out to me my own limit.  There is an element of “cheating” for me if I don’t make the drawing with graphite myself.  Besides, graphite is erasable, printer ink is not!  But if this idea appeals to someone else, I say go for it!  We get to choose what combination of using art materials that have been around for centuries and brand new technology we use.

There are only three rules that have occurred to me – at least so far – in our regular groups.  1 – Only watercolor paint because it’s relatively low impact and we are in my mom’s carpeted offices, not in an ok-to-get-messy art studio.  2 – No one can disparage anyone’s artwork, hopefully even their own.  3 – The music (which is necessary) can’t make anyone crazy – you can’t paint if the music makes you nuts! Beyond this, anything goes.  Really, anything – especially when it comes to making art.  Just because I don’t use masking fluid very much or I don’t like black paint, neutral tint or Payne’s gray doesn’t mean anyone else can’t use them!

I found myself saying last week that I see my job as doing anything within my capacity to support those who come to me with a desire to paint, in bringing forth their art.  This means passing along watercolor skills (of course) and using technology in any way I know how.  Also not insignificant is to support of their minds, hearts and spirits through the often bumpy inner experience of making art – especially at the start.  Eventually we realize that, though it does get easier, it’s always going to be hard in some way.

I’m going out on a limb to say that for all of us, landing on something to paint and then applying ourselves to see it through to completion is just about the most rewarding thing we now do with our lives.  We can trust that our art-making force is strong enough to get us through, as long as we give it the time and space – and then get out of its way!

Here’s to what’s next!

Love,

Cara

January 10, 2017 – Orienting towards beauty

I’m making progress on the leaves in this hydrangea painting and just the final details to go on this little one of a rhody.

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I’m so fortunate to have all the support – incredible support – in this life I’m living.  It comes in the form of several wise elders – people who have walked their path ahead of me – as well as other engaged souls I’ve discovered in cyberspace, who are tuning in and sharing their discoveries in ways that sustain me. My exploration of the past weeks – how does a sensitive, energetically porous being like me hold the oh-so-challenging events and changes in our world – has elicited response, much of it in the form of “just live your life, just do what you do.”  There is great wisdom in this – as well as difficulty – it’s hard for a compulsively thoughtful person to tell herself to not think. And it is what I’m attempting to do.  What I’m working on instead is noticing.  The past week has brought ideas and wisdom that are refining my framework for 2017 – and a new daily practice for the rest of the year.  Here’s what’s come by my radar.

I receive periodic emails from Rev. Jim Burklo.  Officially, he’s the Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California – he’s also a spiritual adventurer who sees with a wry compassion as he ministers out on the progressive edge of Christianity.  His message last week compared the expressions “looking for” and “just looking,” using them in the context of walking through a store.  One has a specific purpose and goal, the other is browsing, being open for whatever catches the eye and heart.  I love this distinction – as these are two discrete ways of being as one “looks.”  This then sparked a curiosity in me about the difference between “looking” and “seeing.”

What I realized is that each of our modes of perception has a pair of verbs – one is intentional – something we choose to actively do or where to place our mental focus.  The other describes what we perceive, which requires that we be receptive.  Here’s how it lays out:

• Vision: to look is intentional, to see is receptive
• Audition: to listen is intentional, to hear is receptive
• Sensation: to touch is intentional, to feel (in the physical sense) is receptive
• Gustation: to eat is intentional, to taste is receptive
• Olfaction: to sniff is intentional, to smell is receptive

We can command someone, or ourselves, to do the first – to look or to listen, but the second just happens – and we have to be available to see or to hear.  With practice we can also train and refine our abilities on the receptive side.

Making visual art as we do, I zeroed in on the look/see pair.  As a teacher, what I’ve come to realize is that one of the ways I help those who paint with me is invite them to see more carefully.  I will say, “look at how this darker part tells us that this petal curves.”  It is then upon her to see it, to receive that information, to make that distinction in her brain.  In my own painting practice the particular details and nuance of what I’m painting are revealed to me incrementally too.  I can’t or don’t see it all at first. It amazes me how this happens over and over.  It just may be that our brains can only take in so much at a time.

Another piece came in a far-reaching conversation I listened to between Charles Eisenstein and Rupert Sheldrake.  It’s a couple of hours of two guys being pretty philosophical about our society and where they see we are going – as well as where they see we need to be going.  But what heard about beauty contributed to me.  Charles thinks that the transition in our civilization could come down to reorienting towards beauty.  He said “beauty is maybe the prime example of something that cannot be measured, it cannot be reduced to a set of objective criteria” and that as our society has become more oriented around maximizing quantity – especially financial returns – the qualitative aspects of our life have suffered.

I was sent an article last year – I think it was from the Wall Street Journal – that was about scientists attempting to study how we perceive beauty – where in our brains, etc.  I was touched by the thought – that I’d be interested in something about beauty – but I was irritated by the idea of the study.  Now I see why.  The conversation between these two guys has me see that by studying, dissecting, reducing to parts, we take the magic out.  If all I do is analyze a painting, it removes me from my experience of it. They also noted the same about falling in love.

They don’t make this connection, but it’s exactly the left brain vs. right brain modes of perception that Iain McGilchrist has revealed for me.  I have a curious left brain – that serves me well, but in the area of love and beauty, I’d rather have my right brain serve up inspiration.  We are in our right brains when we are “just looking” and available to be blindsided by something beautiful.

I know I’m not alone in being reluctant to jump more fully into the world of social media.  My instant response is overwhelm.  My fear is that the more active I am on social media, the more I share, the more I’ll feel the pull to respond and engage.  And I already feel like there isn’t enough time to tend to all that clamors for my response in the physical world – including working on my paintings.  But I’ve been told that Instagram is a powerful tool for sharing my artwork with a wider audience – which is what my art wants me to do.  I have been stuck because from day to day, what I’m painting changes very little.  I don’t just whip these paintings out.  So what would I post every day?

The idea came to me then, if I’m to orient towards beauty, that I could post on Instagram a photo of something that I found beautiful every day.  Since last Thursday I’ve been doing so – and it is my intention to make this my daily practice for the rest of the year.  There are just six photos so far, but among them I see a glimmer of my particular point of view – my visual voice – showing itself:  I see beauty in the natural world, where light and intimacy play a part – and sometimes even a bit of magic. This practice also supports a contention that I have had for a while – that beauty is everywhere.  I have not been going out of my way – I’m not going looking for beauty in any particular place – I’m just seeing it right before my eyes.

The six I’ve started with.

I told my friend Vicki yesterday that yes, I am still reading the newspaper.  But I’m doing so with a specific intention:  I’m looking for ways in which the world is evolving, for people who are working towards connecting us and bringing us all to the next level (I do find them).  And I am attempting to understand more completely by looking for the light in “their” shadow and the shadow in “our” light. And then the rest of the day I’m just looking to see what to me is beautiful – and attempting to create some of my own to add to the mix.  Besides painting, writing and cooking, I’m certain that all the clearing out I’ve recently been compelled to do is right in line with this.  It is living my love.

When we find ourselves asking the question: what can I do?  How can I contribute?  If what we want is a more beautiful world, it is no small thing to reorient towards beauty, to pay our attention not to what was the reaction to the latest outrageous thing someone said or did, but to beauty, to be available to see it, and to cultivate our capacity to see it more – in our way – as only we can.  When we take action then from this place, it’s transformational, because we create our world with our attention.  So, what do you want to spend your precious attention on today?

With my love,

Cara

January 3, 2017 – Gifts from last year

My painting as it is today. I took a full week off from painting, which was nice. I’m back to it now.

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Last week, just after finishing my post I drove up to Sonoma County to see my friend Cathryn Couch. Being on the cusp of a new year, on our walk she asked me what 2017 looks like for me.  I’d just written that I wasn’t going to project into the New Year, rather I’d let it unfold and live in the “futureless present moment.”  I felt a pull away from this – it’s what we do – we look into the future at this time of the year. Though I felt resistance from inside, through our conversation I recognized that it is good and useful to have at least intentions – to bring our desires in to play in the unfolding of our lives.  Otherwise we could be rudderless as time marches on.  Last Tuesday afternoon my intention was to carry forward the hard lessons from 2016 – and value myself more.  Cathryn framed it for me with the familiar analogy of putting on my own oxygen mask first.  The more I know that my life makes a difference, the more I must tend to my own energy and capacities – so that I can.

Then, while driving the next day I heard Terry Gross interview Francis Ford Coppola on her Fresh Air radio program.  He published his notebook from when he made The Godfather and they were talking about his making that iconic film.  He said something that struck me as really useful.  When he makes a movie he decides what it is about, what is its essence, in one word if possible.  The word for The Godfather was “succession.”  He said that when he’d come to a decision point about the story, the casting, what to edit in or out of the film, he’d ask himself if this furthered the story of “succession” or not.  I like this idea.  A lot.  What came to me is I could use it for this year – a theme to help me know how to respond, moment by moment.

Joe and I had spent the day Sunday putting away Christmas and getting the house, kitchen, refrigerator and pantry all cleared up from the holidays.  The house felt open and clean.  Then my dear friend Vicki called yesterday.  There isn’t anyone with whom I share the inner threads of my life with more than she.  It was a perfect time to connect with her – with all this spaciousness around me.  What came out of our conversation was the desire for my “oxygen mask” intention to start with tending to my physical body – sleep, exercise, hydration and food.  This sounds so close to the diet and exercise regime that many start a new year with, I know.  But it’s really not a resolution – I’m holding this as a re-tuning into caring for myself – so that I can have the energy and presence to do what is good and helpful to others in my life.

After we got off the phone I took Bo up the hill on our hike.  I get lots of insight and inspiration on mornings on that hill with my dog!  What came to me was the theme for this year:  Living my love.  It seems to apply to just about any area of my life – my health, my work, my creativity, relationships.  I like how this isn’t a resolution – it leaves room for the “futureless present moment” and life unfolding in its own time and in ways I cannot imagine – as well as it provides an organizing principle that keeps me from flopping in the breeze.

Living my love harkens back to something that came through me in the middle of last year – that what I do, what we who paint together are doing, is not just painting what we love, we are painting our love. This year I will attempt to apply it more broadly.  This prompted me to take a peek back to other insights that came to me last year because I’ve sat my butt down to write every Tuesday.  Here are some:

• Attention and awareness are vital – we literally create our world via what we pay attention to, and unless we are aware, or awake, it’s nearly impossible to respond in the moment, according to our intentions.  How can I live my love if I’m asleep at the wheel? (1/26/16)
• Cultivating right-brained awareness is important too.  It’s our right brain that sees holistically and is geared towards connection and relationship, and is open to what is new.  Navigating these uncertain times is a call to engage our right brains big time!  We live our love via our right brain. (1/19/16)
• Growing our capacity to hold suffering, starting with our own, heals us and the world.  Artists make this tangible in the art we make – we paint our redemption – our gift to the world.  Living our love in the real world is most powerful when we respond to pain in ways that at least doesn’t perpetuate it. (3/29/16)
• The sacred lives in ordinary moments – a good reason to practice being awake – so we don’t miss too many of them. (4/19/16)
• What we love makes us who we are.  We don’t choose it – what we love chooses us.  Giving ourselves permission to live what we love – and who we love – changes everything. (5/31/16 and 7/5/16)
• Paintings, projects and lives have phases.  I identified some of these phases in the making of painting – which can apply more broadly too.  It sure helps me to realize this.  It helps me stay out of the dumper – and makes it easier to return to living my love when I do go there. (8/30/16)
• We each have a voice, spoken, written, painted, played.  Everything we do carries our mark and speaks for us.  It is fueled by what we love – by what we value.  It is living our love made manifest – sometimes it’s beautiful, sometimes it’s fierce. (10/25/16)
• Living our love is “soul on deck” in the words of Clarissa Pinkola Estes, which, as she says, shines like gold in dark times. (10/4/16)

Now my confession:  after turning off electronics at 9:30 and going to bed soon after, I woke at 1:30 this morning and haven’t been back to sleep.  My brain and heart were twisted up with the juxtaposition of having claimed “living my love” as the theme for this year and then having spent a good part of the afternoon yesterday being wholly unpleasant to someone I care about.  I acted through my irritation and frustration at a situation that wasn’t what I expected.  I just couldn’t seem to take it in stride.  In the wee hours I had all kinds of voices – some telling me I’m a sham.  Here it is – an opportunity to grow my capacity for suffering!  I have a relationship to attempt to repair and a situation to change so that I don’t go here again – at least not for this reason.  I know that living my love doesn’t mean that I won’t ever get upset.  It’s just so painful to be this hard on someone – including myself.

I’ve never been further from the hopeful place I’ve been in years past, facing a bright, shiny new year. And yet, I’ve also never felt as solidly myself (even after having been so lousy with someone) which brings another kind of hope to me.  Last year brought some hard stuff that has given me a sense of Cara that I’ve not known before.  This and the insights that arose on Tuesdays are gifts from 2016 that, to me, are worth carrying into this next year – a moment at a time.

With my love,

Cara

December 27, 2016 – The futureless present moment

The two paintings I’m working on – as they are in this moment.

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At the end of last year – 2015 – I made a promise to paint every single day this year.   And I did, until mid-June when I missed my first day.  I felt terrible, I reported in to you and re-committed.  Later in the summer – I forget exactly when, I missed a second day.  There were a few more after that.  Yesterday was the third in a row I didn’t paint.  It does feel like my promise has less of a hold on me.  But rather than looking at it as a failure, I’m putting it in perspective.

My guess is that I didn’t paint somewhere between 10 and 15 days this year.  This means that I put brush to paint to paper on more than 350 days in 2016.  If I look at this in regards to any year in the past, there is no comparison.  In October of 2010 I drove 800 miles to La Jolla and back, to setup and do an art festival all by myself.   After this I didn’t paint for five months!  Nothing until the next March – almost half a year!  This was after I’d been doing shows for a few years and had begun calling myself an artist too.  There were other winters as well when I didn’t paint for two or three months.

It was when I began to lead art groups, classes and workshops that my painting time became much more regular.  This makes sense because I’ve learned that I’m oriented outside-in rather than inside-out.  I take action in response to something from outside me, rather than because of some kind of fire in my own belly that directs me.  I don’t paint my dreams, my visions, I don’t invent what it is I paint, I record what I witness outside myself.  I didn’t set out to show my art at Marin Open Studios for the first time, I was coaxed into doing it by my friend Eleanor Harvey.  I didn’t set out to teach what I know about watercolor, I was pestered by Shannon Brown until I overcame my fears.  Because the structure of my teaching is on-going (except for this last week of the year) whenever I’m here at home, we gather to paint.  Since I started these groups there is always a painting that I’m actively painting on.  My relational nature is the organizing principle of my life.  If it weren’t for other people I wonder if I’d ever even get out of bed!

I’ve been uncharacteristically melancholy the past several weeks.  I don’t remember a time in recent history when I’ve felt this consistently blue.  I’m so glad for my relational nature because the only thing that seems to help is being with other people.  When I’m alone, though, my heart has been heavy.  The cause has to be my sensitivity to the state of our country and our world.  I don’t ever remember being this disconnected from my natural optimism.  Something I read in an email Betsey sent me last week helped shift things.  She wrote:

“… it’s become apparent in ways it normally isn’t that the future doesn’t exist. Of course it never exists, and everything can change in an instant, but we don’t operate that way. We assume a future that will be at least related to the past. And why shouldn’t we, since that’s how it goes for much of the time. But for me that assumption is gone on several levels, and a lot of the time the effect is to push me into the present, which has been oddly consoling.” 

Yes!  The future doesn’t actually exist – except in our imagination.  Though I’d heard this before, as had Betsey, it fell over me in a fresh new way.  And it felt like a pressure relief valve was opened.  I embarked upon my annual Christmas cookie baking marathon with a whole different mind.  I wasn’t wound up with the tension of all the cookies on my list, I found myself simply unwrapping this cube of butter, or measuring out this cup of brown sugar.  Though I haven’t stayed perfectly there – always only in the present moment – it has been a place for me to come back to throughout these past days, busy with family and Christmas celebrations.

I don’t remember ever looking into a New Year with this much uncertainty.  My way has been to face new years with hope and wonder.  But this year feels so different.  If we come back to “the future doesn’t exist,” there really never is certainty, and this year is not really any different, except that the circumstances have us be more aware of it.  Eight years ago I put the words from a Christmas carol in our Christmas card:  “the thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”  Hope was easy then.  I felt a purity and an innocence that is not here now.

When I paid a visit to my dear Sister Mary yesterday, we talked about hope.  She told me that real hope comes in the face of all evidence that there is none.  I’m being supported from all over with this message.  An email Sandy Roos sent me included a link to this exquisitely meditative video of wildlife in winter and these words from Wendell Barry:  Be joyful even though you have considered all the facts.

Where does this lead me with my promise to paint every day?  And what about looking into this New Year?  This particular New Year is calling me to not resolve or promise anything.  What feels most true is to live “the future doesn’t exist.”  This will support me in strengthening my spiritual ballast, in practicing anchoring myself in the moment as much as I can, and in sourcing my own joy, regardless of “the facts.” As a born responder – someone whose reality is taken most easily, most readily, as a response to the world around me, this is my growing edge.  It feels hard, but so necessary.

The promise to paint every day year has strengthened my relationship with being a painter.  I respond to the impulse from within me to paint much more readily than I ever have.  Paintings come to be as successions of painting moments.  It is my tender, but undying hope that I will respond to my impulses to paint in even more moments as the coming year unfolds.  The paintings in me can only come through if I do.  And the art that it is in you too.  This means taking action in moments – specific moments – to pull away from what would distract and deter us and sit ourselves down to do our work.

I often write the phrase “I look forward to…” especially in anticipation of something enjoyable.  At the edge of a new year this would be the phase my optimistic self would use here.  But what if I don’t?  What if I, if we, encounter and live this New Year one moment at a time – as much as we can?  It feels to me a bit disorienting, but it also takes off the pressure.  Most of what has unfolded so far in my life I could never have dreamed of – both the joyful and the painful.  So why not let the future show itself to us as it arises?

In this moment, with all my love,

Cara

December 20, 2016 – The light of Christmas

Bo and U cozied by the tree on Sunday afternoon.

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I am more seriously tempted this morning to “re-run” a post than I have ever been. At this time last year, I wrote one I called, “Being Christmas” that received quite a bit of appreciation. I just re-read it which has me wondering what I can say about Christmas that is any better. I could take it easy today and just re-post it. But I’m not. I’m going to see what is here to say this year – which feels like an entirely different time, in which to celebrate Christmas.

We’ve decorated the house and have put up one of the prettiest trees, I think, than we ever have. We had a Christmas party for Joe’s men’s group this past weekend. Our niece Leigh is here from Brooklyn – it is always so special to get to spend time with her. We will gather with my family for Christmas Eve and host Joe’s family here on Christmas night. I will get in the kitchen this week to make some Christmas goodies to share. All the circumstances of celebrating Christmas are here. But there is something missing for me – something like a kind of purity and innocence that I expressed in last year’s post.

I wrote: For me the magic of Christmas is all of this – it’s light in the darkness – (I especially love colored light), it’s the generosity of life – feasting and making offerings to each other, it’s feeling an open-hearted, joyful spirit and wishing each other goodwill. To me, this is all part of celebrating the birth of the Christ spirit, that lives in all of us – in all of life, really – whether we are “Christian” or not.

There are several people close to me who are navigating extreme challenges: my other mom’s first holiday season without Dad – after 63 years of marriage, the lovely person who keeps our accounting in good order is bravely recovering from major surgery, my Godmother is struggling as she does life while caring for the love of her life as he gets older. In the face of this, what “reason” do I have to have such a heavy heart? But I know I’m not alone. There is a darkness that has been revealed that brings with it enormous uncertainty for what will happen to us all.

When I left the grocery store yesterday evening, I ended up in a conversation with the guy who was ringing the bell for the Salvation Army. He was black and we had a gentle conversation about living lives from inside bodies, with different “complexions,” as he called them. Then the conversation moved to his very dark view of things: money, politics, race, conspiracy. He reads a lot, he told me, and it seems he reads a whole lot about the dark forces that some say are in play in our world. I won’t repeat what he told me – spreading darkness is not what I’m here to do. But I walked to the car shivering with fear, at the possibility that what he says may be true.  I will not indulge my curiosity by investigating the veracity of what he said – and, yet I do acknowledge that darkness exists.

My compulsion to expand my understanding and capacity to hold life’s circumstances as it evolves is alive and well – especially in the past several weeks. I want to have context – to attempt to assign meaning to what is happening. It’s like I can’t survive this fear if I’m untethered to some bigger picture. I keep feeling like human life is on the cusp of a transformation – like the times I’ve lived through – when personal upheaval was the catalyst that led to the next version of me. In these times though, I was completely untethered. There were months and months that I had no idea what the future would hold or how long this would last. Regardless of how much I want to be able to, I don’t think it’s possible to think our way through real transformation. We can’t figure it out. We must sail away from the shoreline of the old version of reality before we reach the shores of the new.

In the face of this I’m living these questions: How do I – as a person born to express with color and light – stay connected, to all that is good in the face of this darkness? Where’s the place between head-in-the sand and lost-in-despair? What does it mean for the feminine to value itself, as I wrote about last week? And what does it mean to celebrate Christmas from this place – which feels more like post-resurrection-Easter Saturday than it does celebrating the advent of the Christ-spirit?

I’ve been thinking about that first Christmas post-divorce when I spent Christmas Eve all alone in my new little house. Dressed in a big baggy sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up to my elbows, latex house paint in my hair, I sat on a rolled up piece of carpet in front of a Duraflame log in the fireplace. I feasted on a glass of Chardonnay and a Marie Callendar’s chicken pie. And I was blissfully happy. It was a stripped down celebration. Simple. If that were how I spent every Christmas Eve, it would be sad. And it was what felt right that year. We suffer less if we do what feels congruent to our lives at the time.

This year I have zero motivation to go Christmas shopping. I’ve been cleaning out closets and culling away unused belongings – I’m responding to a feeling that we are drowning in “stuff” in this house. So I can’t imagine gathering more of it for others. I’m even resisting sending out emails to you all reminding you of the ways that you could give gifts of my wares – the art, mugs and calendars – even though they provide light and color to the world.

What I still do want to do is paint – my creative life is my haven – along with a gentle inner-reminder to take tender care of myself. There’s so much harshness; tenderness is in order. I’ve gone to bed before 9:30 twice in the past week. The deep sleep that follows going to bed this early is a miracle for my body and soul. What does feel right to me is to do less, read less, rest more.

On Saturday, I got a call from my dear friend Julia. She called not because she needed anything, not because she had a question or any particular purpose, except to say she was grateful for me in her life and that she loved me. This feels like Christmas to me. As we talked, we found ourselves exploring Christmas spirit – the sparkly magic of Christmas morning – what I feel in wishing someone a “Merry Christmas” that isn’t there in “Happy Holidays” or worse “have a good holiday.” Julia said “Christmas is for everyone.” This kind of Christmas does not require you to believe in anything.

I read once that the time of births of great people – like MLK Jr and Abraham Lincoln aren’t widely celebrated until they’ve grown to live lives that have had enormous impact. It’s a retroactive thing. The real impact of the birth that was the “First Christmas” wasn’t known until that baby grew to show the world what it means to love each other in a revolutionary way. As we witness the darkness, the horrors of refugees, of assassinations of diplomats, of drug-addicted people living in the streets and those who grieve the loss of someone they love, in the face of this we still find it in us to connect and share our love for each other. What comes to me now might sound trite. But things become trite because they are said over and over – which means they must contain truth. I am holding on to this: the light of Christmas is eternal, ever-present human connection – the light of Christmas is love.

Merry Christmas. Love,

Cara

December 13, 2016 – Watching for miracles

“The background is in and I’m now ready to start on the scraggly leaves.”

Listen to this post: recording coming soon…

I woke up really early Sunday morning – something like 4am – with the thought – I have no idea where the tickets are – the tickets for tonight’s Chanticleer Christmas concert with my husband’s family. I’ve been the one who has ordered them the past several years – but in fact Joe and I did it together in September. We got a ticket for Dad, with the tender hope that he’d still be here to enjoy it – one of the highlights of the year for him. But, I didn’t remember running across them since. Joe asked me the same question after we got up. I had to confess I had no idea. He said that he had given them to me, asking me to put them someplace safe – what did I do with them? I had absolutely no clue. What ensued was not at all in the spirit of Christmas: anxiety, upset, as we searched all the safe-keeping spots. Nothing.

Everyone was looking forward to this – counting on there being tickets. We do this every year. We had dinner reservations. I was melting down inside. Menopause was blamed for the complete lack of memory. What could I have done with them??? I might have stashed them in the top drawer at his office. I jumped in the shower, grabbed everything (including my blow dryer and brush) for the Paint Our Prayers in Larkspur. With wet hair and no makeup, I headed out the door to go see. They weren’t there either. And neither was there evidence anywhere, that we had actually purchased them – not in our ticket accounts online or credit card statements.

Then the spirit of Christmas crept back in. There were seats available for the second show. We flip-flopped dinner and concert, and all was well. Plus we didn’t have to get Dad a ticket – he’d be there without needing one. Things settled down, apologies came. We recovered. When I picked up the tickets at Will Call before the concert, they checked for me to see, if we were on the list for the first show. We had indeed never actually bought the tickets. I didn’t misplace them – they never existed. I’m not losing my mind. He must have handed me the tickets to Madame Butterfly, the opera he took me to on my birthday, two weeks ago. But what has reverberated in me since, is how readily and how willing we both were, to assume that the missing tickets were my fault.

I had a conversation with my mom about it yesterday, which expanded to what is going on in our world – with masculine and feminine – to a much bigger level, than a moment in a marriage. At the end of the conversation, I said something that felt important. I said, not only is there a need for there to be more feminine at play in our world, and for the masculine to value the feminine, but also, for the feminine to value the feminine. Those of us who embody and express beauty, compassion, empathy, cooperation, connection – who see from the eternal perspective – are called to live and operate, knowing how vital what we bring is. Why would we value the feminine though? It’s the masculine that is in power, that sets the rules of the game, determines what’s important. And since, as I’ve learned from Alison Armstrong, it is feminine beings who are – for very good reason – more adaptable, we’ve adapted ourselves to be more masculine – and we believe that doing so, makes us more valued.

A quick note: In some ways, the language of masculine and feminine can be in the way – as it gets linked with male and female and that one is better than the other. We do need both. But, I use it, because it’s shorthand for qualities and modes of being – which we all have capacities for.

Last night, thanks to a Facebook post by my coach Lissa Boles that pointed me there, I dove into some of the recent articles, written by Charles Eisenstein. (This one, written two days after the election, is amongst the most helpful I’ve read on the election aftermath, BTW). He’s a deep and insightful thinker, writer and speaker. His take on what is going on in our world, is stunning to me in its brilliance and forward thinking. Though he’s not using this language, he’s absolutely talking about bringing in the feminine in our interactions. To give you an idea, one of his books is called, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible. I ended my evening with him, by watching a TED talk, in which he talked about miracles. He said this: “A miracle is not the intercession of an external divine agency in violation of the laws of nature. A miracle is something that is impossible from an old understanding of reality – and possible from a new one.” We are in, he says, a period where our understanding of reality – of what is real – is radically changing.

I see that it is the old understanding of reality, to engage with those we are in conflict with, from a place of anger or hatred – to lash out at them. At the end of the article I link to above, Charles Eisenstein says: “Instead, we can engage them empowered by the inner mantra that my friend Pancho Ramos-Stierle uses in confrontations with his jailers: “Brother, your soul is too beautiful to be doing this work.” Since reading this last night, I’ve been asking the question: what gives him the capacity and presence of mind, to speak from his heart to his jailers instead of lashing back? It must be some kind of inner capacity. It’s my guess, that he must not feel harmed, must not be taking their actions personally, he must be holding himself differently than those who respond defensively.

In this whole deal with the tickets, I did respond defensively and it wasn’t me at my best. And in a way, I’m grateful for it – because want to be able to not be. I want to be able to allow those in my life, including those I love most, to be upset, even upset with me and not abandon myself as I did and then abandon us in how I communicate.  Somehow these things feel related. In that, it takes a new reality – for me to have and act from a new understanding of who I am and how I am of value – especially my feminine qualities – that allows the miracle of communication at this level to happen. Part of this is also not getting triggered as easily by someone else getting triggered. It’s an on-going endeavor. And one that I’m not giving up on.

Looking out into my life and the world with this definition of what a miracle is, my guess is that they are everywhere. Every shift of awareness, everything we learn or discover, enables us to redefine what is real for us. Before ever putting a brush to paint to paper, the thought of being able to make paintings, is impossible. There is a piece of me that feels this impossibility, at the start of every new painting. Even with the detailed road-map of a photo for inspiration, I cannot know what the painting will ultimately be. This uncertainty is inherent in the process of creation. And each finished one, does have the feeling of miracle in it.

It feels like we are living in a new world, as we come to the end of this year. There is so much fear, grief and anger at how things have unfolded. And so much darkness that has been given license. It seems to me, that this exactly where we’ll find miracles though – there’s no need for them when things are sunny and bright. I think of the story in the faith tradition, that is the closest to my heart – the birth we celebrate at this time of the year. In a reality where a poor couple unable to find shelter, bring their child into the world in a lowly manger, amongst the animals, and there is born a person – human and divine, just as we all are – who brings an understanding of another reality – one of beauty, compassion, empathy, cooperation and connection. We’re still talking about bringing this reality in, 2,000 years later. There’s no giving up hope in me. I’m going to be on the look out for these miracles. You too?

With my appreciation for the miracle you are to me – and with my love,

Cara

December 6, 2016 – All the light we can and cannot see

I’m still working on a little painting I’m calling “Reverence” – and have started this larger one too. I wanted to paint its imperfection, beauty beyond what is generally seen as its prime. And, of course, there is that light.

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Last Friday, one of the artists asked me, if I’d thought about leading any more art trips to Europe. Her question brought back up for me, last year’s Paris Pilgrimage and how hard it was. My response to her, was that when I had just come home from Paris last year, I was determined that the challenges would not be the end of the story – that I’d do it again, after having learned and grown from it – but this year, I’m thinking it very well could be the end of the story. Then I realized what I’d said – and who was in the room. Two of the pilgrims on the trip were there. This had me consider the Pilgrimage from their perspective – which, even given the challenges, they said was wonderful. I re-lived with them, the spectacular day in Giverny to see Monet’s garden in early fall, the evening on the Bateau Mouche to see the lights of Paris, the gorgeous baroque concert in Sainte Chapelle, and the friendship that formed between three of them – who hadn’t know each other before – that continues even a year later.

I then started recalling the bright spots in my experience, that I had let fall away. Alicia brought me big bodacious pink hydrangeas, to brighten my room when I was in sick in bed; our apartment host had provided her doctor’s contact information, without which, I’d have had no idea where to start to get medical help. European medicine is skilled – and affordable. My visit and three prescriptions were less than 100 euros! The day – after I’d spent two in bed, so sick I was frightened – I traveled to outside of Paris effortlessly, in the “pink bubble”, we created for ourselves (it really worked…). And then there was, ultimately, my resilience. I never threw in the towel, I rebounded and was able to function, for the final two days until late at night. And, throughout it all, my French-speaking skills never let me down. I have no business being able to speak it as well as I do. I lived there 20 years ago, and I almost never speak it here at home.

Though, looking back more than a year now, the brightest light for me – is even deeper. I realize that what I took on was enormous. Conceiving, planning , promoting, supporting, financing, leading, holding the space for an international trip like this – all on my own – no one apart from the other pilgrims to lean on, and, without any experience doing anything like this before – was huge. I realize both how courageous it was, if a bit foolhardy (I am a Sagittarius). And, how the way I went about this, asked too much of me. I am a graduate of a Co-Active leadership program, where we are taught the power of two – and how compassionate it is for everyone concerned – everyone – for there to be two leaders – not just for backup, but for range and increased creativity. No one leader can bring everything. Plus I am a woman, a feminine being, and I have never been happiest, operating on my own.

The light that shines from this trip for me, is the knowing – the kind of knowing, that I wrote about last week – that what I have to offer, is more precious than organizational efforts. I am a spiritual space-holder and explorer and guide, for the participants’ deeper experience. So, if I were to take on something like this again, I will have support, really solid support. I will work with a tour company or some other person or organization, to share the accountability of the trip with. If I look back, I cannot imagine having this knowing, without having lived through the trip as it was. It took the experiences I had – in all their difficulty – for me to see this. I’m different, my consciousness, my awareness is expanded, and I feel my value – and more solid inside.

I am witnessing a lot of people around me in darkness. Not only feeling the effects of the current state of our national politics and social culture, as so much ugliness, that has been mostly hidden, is being revealed – but on a more personal level too: death, aging, illness. I’m feeling it. There is a heavy weight to it. We are living through times of dis-integration. My reaction to this has been, to attempt to find the bigger picture, the reason we are going through this. I’ve been compelled to understand why and how, and what this all means! I’m recently realizing that this is a coping mechanism, to avoid my own fears. Just as I could not access the light from the Pilgrimage to Paris until much later, we can’t know how we will grow from this, until far down the road. We do, just have to hold on for the ride.

Dark times in my life have all been fruitful. And in them, light has always arisen. Dickens started The Tale of Two Cities with: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” I wonder if this isn’t just how it is, in living a human life. There is always light hidden in the shadow – like those who are bravely bearing the danger and their own emotions, sifting through the burned out warehouse, for the victims of the fire in Oakland. But, the brightest light also casts the darkest shadow. We all have blind spots – and they are worse when things are too good, too bright – like looking right into the sun. Times of darkness reveal what we could not see. I’ve not discovered my blinds spots in any other way! Then – what ensues, is nothing less than our evolution.

So what do we do besides hang on, besides just “hang in there?” My Donna has taught me to feel it, to let it sear my insides – to develop the capacity for my own suffering. This is what matures our hearts and grows us as people. It’s also what keeps us from passing our darkness on in hurtful, violent ways. I love what Father Richard Rohr said, in his interview with Oprah: “We must transform our pain or we will transmit it.”

We also must stay awake and attune our attention to the points of light – they are everywhere. There’s light we feel with our hearts, and light we see with our eyes. Those of us who have the privilege of having the inclination, the time and the ability – we create. Some may be called to create the darkness – to give those who suffer, the consolation of being seen and known. I’m called to paint the light – and to shine mine as much as I am able, and still stay true. In order to paint the light, I must see and paint the darkness too. It is the contrast, the two next to each other that take our breath away.

The other thing that happens in dark times, is connection – or at least the invitation for it. We instinctively huddle up, gather together and care for each other. I’m holding space for this on Sunday. It’s December’s Paint our Prayers. If you’d like to come in person, I’d love to have you join. Here’s the signup. And if you want to join over the World Wide Web that connects us all, send me an email to send you the link.

As I come to write every Tuesday, you are with me. As I type, I’m aware of you out there – I literally write this to you. It is this connection with you, that has drawn these posts from me every week, for over two years and two months now.

With my gratitude and love,

Cara

November 29, 2016 – Trusting yourself

This is “Eve” a painting I did earlier this year – for the simple reason that I loved the image – in all its pinkness and light. And I painted it despite the fact that this kind of art is so not in style these days!

Listen to this post:

A few times a year, I offer a hands-on demonstration at Riley Street, our local art store. This past Saturday was one of them. I gave a “tour” around my palette – the paints and pigments I use, which are my absolute favorites and why. One of the attendees asked me a question, that was somewhat complicated, about artists she’d heard of using specific color combinations, such as a cool yellow with a cool blue or a warm blue with a warm red. She wanted to know how I combine colors and what rules I follow. My head was sort of swimming with the details of her question; I find it really convoluted, to combine the process of making art with the idea of following “rules” like this.

My answer came in two parts. The first has to do with using the terms “cool” and “warm.” I find it can be useful to use these words, when describing groups of colors. Warm colors are well understood, as those we associate with warm things, such as fire: yellow, orange and red. In the same way, we call cool colors: green, blue and purple. But when it comes to using “warm” and “cool” to describe individual colors, the meaning can be really ambiguous. What the heck is a warm blue? I think the custom is that a warm blue is a violet-leaning blue. But to me a green-blue feels warmer. Using warm and cool in this way, is not intuitive. So, instead I always refer to them according to the color they lean towards – a greenish yellow, an orange-yellow, a more violet-red, etc.

Then there was the second half of my answer, which to me, is the more important part. As I combine colors on my paintings, I choose the colors that appeal to me, that are inspired by my reference image and that, when I put them together on my painting, please me. My desired result doesn’t always happen on my first attempt – it often doesn’t – but, it’s what I’m striving for. Even when I first began painting years ago, I knew what I liked and didn’t like.

I phrased this response to her question from my own perspective – when I combine colors on my paintings… And today, I’m saying this to you – to offer permission to you in your life and painting. Mix whatever colors you want! Whatever is pleasing to you. Everything about our expression is unique to us, to our own particular and individual view and filter. The colors we choose to mix together, are part of our expression – they are part of our visual voice.

I really appreciate the movie reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle, written by the senior film critic, Mick Lasalle. His reviews reveal a perceptiveness, that amazes me time and again. I always read his Q&A column, in the Sunday pink section. This week he was asked a question, about how he rates films with multiple directors, such as Paris je t’aime. I found his response helpful in what I’m writing about here.

Rather than use some kind of scoring system, he evaluates these films as he does any other. He says, “It’s just intuitive, because it has to be intuitive. In the end, there cannot be a system for reviewing movies, because art doesn’t yield to systems.” He’s right, art is intuitive. Our response to it is intuitive and making it has to be intuitive.

As we learn, it can be helpful or even simply interesting to learn “rules”, such as putting colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel to create visual excitement, or putting colors together that are adjacent to create harmony. But what’s more important to forming our own visual voice, is that we observe these effects ourselves. You can be told that putting orange next to blue makes for contrast, or… and… you can just paint orange next to blue, and see how your color perception interprets these two together. My sense is that we need both: to learn to the skills of our craft enough, so that we aren’t always focused on the how of making art. And, we need to trust ourselves, give ourselves the permission to follow our intuition, our inklings, our inspirations and allow our preferences.

There is no formal curriculum in our weekly groups. All the teaching that I do, is drawn out of me, rather than my pushing anything on to those who come paint with me. I do all I can to foster the individual intuitive senses, of the artists I’m working with. You are in the driver seat with your own art and the direction it’s headed in. I can’t get inside your head to see your vision. My job is to help you with the obstacles in getting it there, based on what you can describe to me.

The word-nerd in me looked up the origin of the words “intuitive” and “intuition.” Their Latin roots mean to “look at or watch over”, but an early meaning was theological: “insight, direct or immediate cognition, spiritual perception.” Our intuition is a form of spiritual knowing – and it comes from simply observing. My friend, Joanne LeBlanc, uses the expression: “I know it in my knower.” I think this is what she’s talking about. Sometimes we do just know things. And this intuitive knowing, is where our art comes from.

This comes down to the idea of trusting ourselves – trusting what we like and don’t like, trusting our intuitive sense, even trusting the way we paint. I’ve seen enough art emerging, to realize I could write a Dr. Seuss book about artists – there are fast ones and slow ones, there are neat ones and messy ones, there are bold ones and soft ones, there are those who love detail and those made crazy by it. Part of the journey as artist, is to embrace the way our art comes through us.

I do know of self-doubt too. I made a big trip to New York in 2009, to show my work at a big art trade show, it was a big swing out and costly in several ways. I had my light and color-filled paintings on display, across from an artist from Paris, whose walls were filled with these dark and spare images of one lone jug on a table or a city street, with just a bit of light coming through the buildings. Her art felt lonely and desolate to me. After four days of the show, she had just about sold out and I’d sold just one piece at the last minute. I was left feeling like my art was trivial – not as “important” in some way. I had to remind myself that this was just not my audience.

I’m here to say, that the desire you and I have to make art is sacred – and the art that our intuition sends through us, is our souls on deck. If there’s anything that is needed in this world these days, it is expression that reveals that which is genuine and real. I promise never to paint anything else, regardless of what’s in fashion, or follow any rules for their own sake. And I won’t let you either. We’re here to paint our love.

With my love,

Cara