Dancing Without a Partner

This painting has about three other paintings underneath it, just like me, layers and layers of stories, but somewhere underneath the layers is my true Being trying to shine through. These other layers create a beautiful rich texture to work with though and I love the final result. Underneath is a forest, some rocks, moss and a lot of sadness. This delightful play of dancing light is what burst forth one day after the canvas had sat unfinished in my studio for months and months. It quite literally danced itself into existence!

Dance

Dance, when you're torn open,
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting,
Dance in your blood, Dance, when
you're perfectly free.

-Rumi

Longing

Longing, felt fully, carries us to belonging. The more times we traverse this path--feeling the loneliness or craving, and inhabiting it's immensity--the more the longing for love becomes a gateway into love intself. Our longings don't disappear, nor does the need for others. But by opening into the well of desire--again and again--we come to trust the boundless love that is it's source.

Opening

There is a way

of breathing

that's a shame

and a suffocation

and there's another

way of expiring,

a love breath,

That lets you

open infinitely.

This human shape

is a ghost made

of distraction and pain,

Sometimes pure light,

sometimes cruel,

trying wildly to open,

this image tightly

held within itself.

-Rumi

Thus spoke the sage Rumi:

Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.
Love alone is capable of revealing the truth of Love and being a Lover.
The way of our prophets is the way of Truth.
If you want to live, die in Love;
die in Love if you want to remain alive.

Details

Here are some details of Untamed Life Force which can be seen in my other blog in full size.  The details still don't show all the texture of the papers and paint  but it does give a better sense of the surface of the painting.

More Fire

Not sure where this one is headed yet but more red underpainting, maybe it's the bleak november weather that is inspiring this inner heat. Lots of new adjustments to my new life in the
city. Big full moon last night, so bright and beautiful over the city but oh how I miss the silhouetted woods beneath that moon. I love being able to focus fully on my paints but I am so lonely at times
it breaks my heart. Last night I painted all day, left the studio late and went shopping for food in the world largest Loblaw's where the florescent lighting set off a migraine that was like a freight train barreling through my head. Hurt all night, not much sleep but woke up
and it was gone, so grateful for pain free moments in life.

Workng with Red

Having trouble getting started in the studio the other day, felt so stuck and sticky and clogged up.
Best solution for this is red, cadmium red, lots of it, seems to get the fire in me stoked up. I just love the result of this glowing red underpainting. Still a long way to go but the red warms me up just like a wood stove in winter.

Montreal Artexpo

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Montreal Artexpo

Participated in the Montreal Art Expo this past week-end. Huge expenditure of money, time and energy for very little return. However, I think I am learning more about where and how I want to present my artwork. After having spent the summer painting in the earthy surroundings of the barn the artexpo was the exact opposite. Art as commodity and a full on business practice. I have always struggled with reconciling these two forces. On the one hand I want people to see my work and have the chance to respond or not to it but to turn it into a blatant commercial enterprise just turns my stomach, it's like putting your children up for sale. At the same time, the event allowed me to interact with other artists and meet several people who were drawn into my paintings and left with a part of them in their soul. The people who were drawn to my work almost always commented on the energy they connected with in the painting. This is more the direction I want to go, I want the viewer to feel what I am feeling deep down inside my own soul. The urgent lament of our earth. I realize that most of the people living in an urban setting don't connect to the landscape visually anymore because it is so foreign to them. I am starting to understand how important it is to me where the paintings are placed because the environment around them allows them to breath and speak or not. The barn was sacred space as such and now in the city, I must find a similar home for them or begin to work in a different manner...not sure where this art journey will lead me from here.

Posted by Holly at 5:35 AM