A Year of Inspiration!

Happy New Year!  2015 is going to be a wonderful year with wonderful experiences!

I am a highly spiritual person.  I love having a daily spiritual practice.

I am a creative, artistic person.  I love having a daily artistic practice.

Because I want to cultivate my daily practices and become more conscious of my efforts as I do so, I am opting to create a Year's Worth of Inspirational Artworks.  Starting today.  

I decided to combine the two and focus on making art that feels uplifting to me.

I am going to try not to limit myself on my mediums, techniques or  what I am doing.  I want to enjoy the process and not worry about whether it is going to "sell".  I want to enjoy creating and be as open as possible to the inspirational energy that comes from immersing myself in the process.

I want to try to detach myself from pre-concieved notions about about is spiritual or uplifting.  I will strive to come to the page, the canvas, the glass…whatever…without any predetermined outcomes in mind.

I will finish each project I start.

Today is a new day.   Here is my art offering for the day...

The Angel of Floral Tornadoes, Mixed Media (watercolor, pastels on watercolor paper)
(c) SZing 2015

"Just give me this: 

A rinsing out, a cleansing free of all my smaller

Strivings

So I can be the class act God intended,

True to my purpose,

All my energy aligned behind my deepest intention.

And just this:

A quieting down, a clearing away of internal ruckus,

So I can hear the huge stillness in my heart

And feel

How I pulse with all creation,

Part and parcel of Your great singing ocean.

And this, too:

A willingness to notice and forgive the myriad times

I fall short,

Forgetting who I really am,

What I really belong to.

So I can start over,

Fresh and clean

Like sweet sheets billowing in the summer sun,

My heart pierced with gratitude."

~Belleruth Nparstek from Prayers for Healing--Summer--August 15, p. 188.

Never Start a New Project…

HAH!  You probably thought I was letting you off the hook creatively.  Don’t start celebrating yet…you haven’t heard the caveat behind that ellipses (…)

Here’s what the whole sentence is:  Never Start a New Project…until you have completed the old one.  (Shhh.  I hear you groaning.  Stop that.)

"Finished" in sign language

When you start a project and then stop to start another one, and then another one, et cetera, your creative energy gets spread too thin.  Each person only gets so many “attention units” that their mind can hold onto.  For each unfinished project, you leave behind attention units that cannot be freed up until the project is completed. 

Ask yourself…why did I quit working on that unfinished piece?  Perhaps you didn’t like the direction it was going, didn’t like the color scheme or even (gasp) thought you might have “messed it up” or ruined it.  Maybe you got bored.  Maybe you aren’t sure what stopped you in your tracks. 

I learned many years ago from one of my instructor’s, Stewart Cubley of The Painting Experience, that rather than quitting or destroying the unfinished piece, I should keep working on it.  Perhaps in order to continue it requires finding one small square inch area on which to focus.  Maybe it requires stepping back and choosing a different paintbrush or color.  Maybe it requires a short break—take a quick walk around the neighborhood or get some sleep, setting a specific appointment time (as if you were attending a class you’d paid a great deal of money to attend) to show up and start in the morning.

Sometimes we quit because we think we are bored—but I have found that the mind can be very canny at protecting us—and sometimes when I think I am bored, what I really am is afraid or emotionally churned up.  This is a prime time to force myself to continue working.  It is what often is the breakthrough point. 

The next time you have the urge to abandon a piece of art or writing, commit yourself to finish it before you will start a new project or destroy an unfinished piece.