Take Back Your Life!

“Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It strikes me as ironic how liberated in thought were some of the folks who lived over 100 years ago. Folks like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau. They didn’t have access to the Internet and all the mega knowledge you can find on there, yet they seemed to have this intuitive grasp of the human condition.

I’m big on experimenting with life because it leads you to places the “permission” and “perfection” blueprints would never take you. I know I say this a lot, but children are naturally curious and explorative. Yet, we decide around first grade that only certain people should have the power to decide what are youngest folks will do. Why not let the children take on more responsibility for their own lives? They are wiser than we believe them to be. That will empower them to achieve full selfdom instead of molded, someone else’s selfdom.Lately, I’ve been a mad, creative scientist of art! Trying all sorts of art techniques, mixing it, freeing it and I must say, wild experimenting! is super fun and liberating. Talk about a natural high. In one painting, I might start with watercolor, then add acrylic paints, then scribble with acrylic or water color markers or regular markers or add some fibre paste or glitter or stick-on bling.

And because I’m in full explorative mode, I sometimes go too far. Instead of freaking out, I just keep going until it looks the way I want, often way cooler than before I thought I went too far.The more I let go of what I think a painting/drawing should be, the more it takes on a life of its own and becomes what it wants to be. I’ll get an urge to add a mark here or a splash of color there. Or just paste something for no real reason. Honestly, when I declare the piece of art finito, it always looks pretty damn good to me!I was working on one painting and golly it reminded me of Betty Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. Looked truly garrish and I almost ripped it to shreds … until … I picked up an acrylic marker and just started doing swoopy things with the hair and then more swoopy things and added a phrase and before I knew it, it looked nothing like “Baby Jane Hudson” at all! It’s almost impossible to go too far in art because you can always add more material on top. Kind of like an archaeological dig in reverse because I am layered up instead of digging down through layers.

Lots of fun to say the least.

How about you? What does your creative process for painting or writing or photography or songwriting look like?

Muse thanks! G.