My beautiful palette.

I had to post a picture of my beautiful palette. It has wheels, and underneath is a little shelf with an old phone book on it so I can wipe the paint residue off my palette knife. I love how all the colours are in order-- I learnt that at university (money well spent), it's so I don't have to think about where the colours are when I'm in the zone. Unfortunately I haven't been in the zone for a while, but the glistening paint surrounded by a forest of brushes continually beckons me to seek it out. I love paint, the look, the feel and smell of it, I really want to go to town and make a big mess, my paintings are far too contolled.

Free to dearest offer.

The Camden art show is coming up. It's a local show where artists can win money and/or sell their work. I have a couple of pieces I'm showing and I have to decide on a price for them. For me art and money are like oil and water, they can co-exist but not mix. Making art for money, I think, is like being Rumplestiltskin backwards and spinning gold into straw. But I guess straw keeps the stable warm.
I'm torn between wanting $1000,000 a piece or giving them away for free. Maybe I should ask for their first born (males only, must be 25 or over).

In the moment...."To be or not to be? That is the question."

I'm finding as this day progresses and each of my four children struggle to establish themselves at the top of the pecking order, that my not being in the moment is working as a tool for self preservation.

Eckhardt Tolle advises that if we are having a negative experience, and can do nothing to change it, we should go more deeply into the moment, without labelling it good or bad, without thought forms of any kind, just observe.
I put Eckhardt's suggestion to the test during root canal therapy. I have to say it absolutely worked! I focused on the light above me, on the feeling in my jaw which had been stretched open for an hour, the sounds and smells of the scraping drill, the chill in my other teeth from the suction device, the debris as it tried to find a way down the back of my throat, and on my overwhelming desire to swallow. I became acutely aware of everything that was happening without judging or labelling anything, and I found that all feelings about the situation disappeared. I felt relaxed and quite peaceful.

I'm going back out there now, to see if I can put it into practise while dealing with the little squabblers.

Time

I was glancing through some family photos and noticed that the recent looking ones are dated Jan '06. I was surprised by the fact that two years have gone by so quickly.
It reminded me of a quote by C.S Lewis. I can't remember it verbatim but the gist of is: The fact that we are constantly surprised by time is like a fish being constantly surprised by water. It must be then, that if time is not natural to us it is because we are infinite beings.

Why is it, on the whole, so difficult to live in the moment, in the only place where life exists? I look back at pictures of the past and feel a tinge of sadness, most of the time I wasn't really there in those precious and beautiful moments with my children.
I guess its never to late to be in the moment. Okay I'm here in the moment, at the moment......

A Glimpse of God

I think I saw God today in the eyes of an old man. His hunched form crossed my path at the food hall, and as he walked to the bin to empty his tray, our eyes locked for a moment. I saw a look of such openness and purity, it was as if age had completely stripped away his armor. It wasn't sadness or weariness that I saw; I saw something strong and timeless; I saw a flash of the infinite in those eyes as they gazed into mine. I wish I would have spoken to him.

I want to live life without armor. I want to be able to see the infinite spark within everyone who crosses my path.
If we would just see how powerful we are, we'd realise that we don't need to protect ourselves. How liberating it would be to shed all of this heavy armour.

"Pick a religion, any religion."

A funny thing happened when I signed my children up for scripture class at school. I received a note from the school asking which religion I preferred. I ticked all the boxes because I want them to learn about all religions, and as a result they were placed in the non-scripture group.
I thought it would be in the interest of peace and religious tolerance for children to learn about all religions--oh well!

The low down on the paintings lower down.

A friend emailed me after she visited my blog and said she found it interesting to read my thoughts as well as see the paintings, so I thought I'd make a little extra effort and write more on what the paintings are about.
The one below called "artist" is somewhat self explanitory. It's a self portrait (omgosh, I'm naked!). The self-protective pose of the figure and the lack of clothing suggests the vulnerability I feel when I create and send my artwork out into the world.
The tip of the paintbrush touches the sun which represents the "divine light", the source of all ceativity.
The bridge symbolizes the connection of the mind(thought) to the hand(expression).
It took a while for me to figure out what the water was about. At the time that I put the water in (initially the figure was buried underground holding up a flower) I was trying to figure out what I believed about Jesus Christ (was he the son of God or just a really good guy?), and I was also struggling with what to do with the foreground after I had put the water in. Suddenly bulrushes popped into my head for the foreground. I looked up bulrushes in my book of symbolism and it said, "Because of it's hardy structure the bulrush is used to symbolize the church as it thrives on the living water of Jesus Christ."
The water in my painting reflects the divine light, as did Jesus Christ, so I guess the water represents him.
The fish and the bird represent two dear friends (and fellow artists) who provided me with a breath of inspiration when I was creatively desolate and artistically lost in a barren and hostile wasteland, called, by equally barren and hostile people, "the real world".

The painting right down the bottom called "terrestrial" had its meaning unfold after it was finished. The three figures represent the different ways people engage with their lives. The large woman in the foreground strides briskly and purposefully, while the suited guy enjoys a frivolous jaunt, and the last figure stands endlessly waiting.
The sun could be rising or setting, both look the same, the only difference being one occurs at the begining and the other at the end of the day. It strikes me that perhaps it is similar with birth and death, that the transitional experiences are the same but one occurs at the beginning of life and the other occurs at the end. So the sunrise/sunset represents birth and death.