Embracing Herself as an Artist for Her Own Growth
Once Kiki and the Pink Dragon was written, the author felt a desire to share the story with others. One day, a vision struck her! She saw tissue paper collage illustrations taped onto the basement window with the sunlight shining through. It was a clear direction from within— but— she did not think she had the skills to follow through and create them.
So she avoided it. And—when one of her best friends showed interest in doing the illustrations, she was relieved to pass it on to her! Her friend wasn’t comfortable with the tissue paper collage so chose a different medium. It didn’t work.
She tried again a year later with another amazing well established artist. Same story.
Eventually, the author realized THE REASON it wasn’t working was that SHE needed to make the illustrations. For her own journey, for her own growth, it had to be her. She finally got it.
To begin, she had to decide to face and move through the fear she was holding on to. She started slowly, just dipping her toes into the project to build momentum. In the process, she saw the fear transform into an expansive flowing energy.
Infusing Energy(Life) Into Art
The author initially sat for hours making tissue paper collage sheets. It was an easy place for her to start. She realizes now that it was kind of a meditation. She would try to get into the right space for long periods of time and from there create the images for the illustrations.
Later, when she got feedback that the illustrations “have a lot of heart” or that they “are calming”, she saw it was because of the space she created to make them. Creating a space to infuse energy/life into the art wasn’t intentional at the time. Creating a space was simply the only way the author could move through the fear to be able to create the illustrations in the first place.
Later when she saw this quote it made her think of her art process:.
“Ideas of art from the modern society is all about award, reward, recognition, respect, reverence, appreciation, criticism…Fundamental cognition of an artist should be: ‘I am infusing life to it!’”
Art is not meant to be created for external validation but as an expression of life. If the focus is on what you can get from creating, trying to create becomes a huge drain. The author felt so much fear about creating and avoided it for a long time. It was only when she started to shift the space inside her and not focus on anything but that space, that the illustrations naturally came through. Her energy was expanded during that time and the energy in the illustrations remains.
Shifting your perspective from what you can get from others to what can you give, by infusing life into creations, not only affects those who experience the art but it opens you up to an expansion of life energy!
Be Present—and Infuse Life into Everything!
As noted in the last blog post, living a life of full of possibility means being present. Allowing herself to tell stories and create art put the author in the present moment. She now realizes that the purpose of life is to extend her presence/life energy into every moment, in everything she does.
She is starting to see how life can become a constant meditation and continuous flow of creation if she can keep coming back to the present moment with awareness.
Masters tell us again and again, that it’s not the product of our actions that is the purpose of life but to simply relax into our being and have awareness of our energy in each moment, allowing it to expand. It opens us up to higher realities of ourselves. It’s in that space where we are in oneness with all of existence—and anything is possible!
No responses yet