when joy leaks out…

My creative process isn’t so much of a process.

It just happens. 

I sit down in my studio and I just begin choosing papers and shapes and textures and before I know it, something is forming. I don’t ever sit down with a plan in mind. I just let it come. I’m often as surprised as anyone else as to what shows up.

My journey as an artist began when I was a child, but in my teens, I put down my creativity and it was decades before it awoke in me again. Awakened by a period of suffering. 

I was going through a difficult divorce, and facing a breast cancer diagnosis. With my world falling apart, something inside me wouldn’t rest until I began to create again.

Seemingly coming out of a place of pain, the art that emerged surprised me. It was full of color, life, and joy.

Patterns that seemed to dance across the canvas.

Colors so bold they seemed to be making a passionate statement against the dull and drab.

Shapes that at first glance seemed contrary, but seemed to fit together on the page in a cohesive jigsaw of contrast.

Creating art is a process of subconscious choices. Seemingly on their own my hands are drawn to a certain pattern. They cut a certain shape. They arrange a certain design.

All choices.

All come from me.

All chosen through feeling. 

You might think that since my artistic awakening occurred during a dark time, my art would be dark. One look through my work and you would see that it is far from that.

To me, art is alchemy.

By engaging in the creative process during difficult times, I am guided through my challenges and back to the realities of life. 

It’s not easy.

It’s not always what you want.

It’s full of things you wouldn’t choose to experience.

But you have to take it as it comes. 

You have to look for the color in the chaos. 

You have to find the patterns woven through the struggles. 

You have to see the jigsaw of shapes that make up the complexity of the experience of being alive.

In creating art, as in living life, if you let your mind go, and let your feelings take over you might just see the joy leaking out when you would least expect it.