Well, it has been some time since I have posted something and today it just felt like it was time.
I have been having profound feelings lately around what my life style has taught me. In the past several years, my life has gone through dramatic changes: living in China for a while and then Toronto. During both of those periods, I spent huge amounts of time alone- alone in a way that is different than spending time alone at home knowing you could break that by sharing coffee with a friend by just making a phone call. When I was in these countries, my nearest and dearest was my nearest and dearest- my husband and my art. Thankfully, my husband would come through the door at some point in the evening after a long day, and we would share our experiences of the day. But from the early hours of the morning to when he would return, I would find myself a stranger in a strange land, so to speak, and hence I discovered so much about myself that could only come to light with so much solitude. I forged an even closer relationship to my artwork and my process of making art.
Without getting into all the discoveries I gleaned, I wanted to write about something powerful I discovered that I understand now because I have energetically felt the power of this discovery to be true. I now understand and believe in the power of keeping one's ideas and future creative projects to one's self.
This may not seem all that new to you as you read this and the notion was not new to me either. I had read and heard the idea that it was "bad luck" to share too much about what one wants to create, but it seemed so superstitious to me and therefor not real.
Because I have approached my daily life differently in Toronto and created a total focus on my work I could feel a certain amt. of power leave when I would discuss my plans for the artwork with others. I realized that I was energetically trying to prove something - my worthiness and intelligence around my work, perhaps, and that need just simply has stopped. I am so incredibly grateful for this realization to have entered my awareness because I now have a trust between me and my work that was infringed upon by my need to share and prove to others. There is a relationship that exists between the artwork and the artists that is sacred- like a spouse or dear friend and I now believe the dance of proving the artwork's value gets in the way of the essence of trust and love that is there. Perhaps the "bad luck" is that leaking energy or broken trust between the artist and the art and by not proving and just letting the art show itself the beauty and true essence of the work shines all the more brilliantly.
It's almost the end of the year and the final months are always fleeting. My husband and I are going to be leaving Toronto soon, where we have been staying for the past 6 months. My time here has been so different and wonderful and I fear I will miss Toronto terribly when we leave. Before staying here, I was first and foremost a portrait artist. I love painting and drawing people. The complicated inner worlds that show through subtle expressions on our faces calls out to me to capture in my artwork. This has not left me, but it has been overshadowed lately by a strong and forceful draw to the trees and nature in Toronto. When I travel with my husband to new parts of the globe, I find myself very much alone in my daily life. As an artist, I spend the days alone drawing or painting when we are at home in Los Angeles, but knowing your friends are out there and with in reach, being able to get together with them at a given notice still fills a large part of my life. When we are gone, It's like there is the part that is customarily secluded while making art, but there is the undeniable absence of my friends as well...wrapping itself around the hours I deem for myself alone while working.
I have found a great deal of solace and love while spending time in a near by park compensating for the feelings of isolation that come from being a stranger in a strange land. The emotions and realizations that fill my heart and mind while exploring the small but rich landscape have buoyed my feelings of loneliness and a strong fondness and spiritual connection to the area has taken place. Since being here I have taken hundreds of photographs and begun making landscape type drawings no doubt as a natural result of these feelings. I never thought I would have felt this kind of energy making drawings of nature. It is like I am making art in the genre I never thought I could find interesting in a complex way. I never thought it would hold my interest long enough to make art like this other than for commission.
So here I am. Posting another drawing I made from a tree I shot pictures of in Riverdale Park. It is 40" X 32" ball point pen on Arches beautiful and soft drawing paper. The emotion is deep there because of the gratitude I have for the undeniable love that radiates freely in nature to anyone who sets foot on the leafy pathways or sits beneath one of the grand trees. The trees are quiet and strong teaching me to feel the same way as I make my way through a mostly silent day. The beauty and grace I see floods my heart in a way that has lifted me from feeling alone.
Thank you for the beauty and love here on Earth and from infinity above. Thank you for the colors and entangled ways we often feel. Thank you for my husband,family and friends- our laughs, loving and tears. Thank you for life and all its wonderful and maddening ways. Life is truly wonderful and rich and I am so grateful for it all.
There is wonder in this world and there is undeniable LOVE that guides us - I am sure. Sometimes it can feel hard to believe this when I sit in pain and confusion over some of my hoped for daily experiences, but as I release more of the self created restrictions on what would make my life "perfect" I feel happier and more assured that I am being led to a very good place all the time. I am finding that BELIEF yields a certain allowance for a greater power to "show" me the way forward, belief in myself, belief that I am not alone and belief a universal love that is always there and easier to experience and feel when my own fears are quieted. This belief frees my mind. My freed mind is more happy, relaxed, inspired and positive. A total energy shift happens and I feel that excitement in my gut. The excitement is my steady and undying companion because it's always there when I am ready to embrace it again. Then answers show up in the most unexpected places and I am wowed again by the beauty and magic in daily life.
Sometimes I just look at the work that I am doing and ask myself,is it really just crap? Am I fooling myself in thinking this might be good? Do my friends and supporters really like what they see or are they just being nice? Other times I am so sure of what I am creating that those lame questions don't dare creep in. It is hard, though. I mean, feeling secure in what I am making while awaiting more outward success and acceptance for what I submit to shows and galleries.
I have read how belief in yourself is paramount to success, and I believe that is true, and I believe in myself enough to continue to make art and put it out there year after year, but sometimes we need more, no? A phone call from a gallery of interest or a sale.....that magical opportunity from out of the blue...
Being patient is a constant goal and I thank God that the act of making art makes the questioning thoughts all disappear.
I imagine most artists grapple with this narcissism off an on. We are our own bosses, our own choice makers and unless we are making commissioned artwork, our own visionaries that reach out to the void grasping at inspiration and form. Of course I make art out of inspiration and an inner need but I want to be successful at selling it as well. I will not pretend that I am some purist who does not wish for that part of the equation. You have to make the art as if you don't care about the sale- yet it is that second part that helps to validate, that part that clings on and is the karmic payback for the output, faith and love for what I do. The love is not diminished by the need to sell. They are separate but like conjoined twins both needing nourishment and validation and dependant on each other for life of the whole.
Well I am happy to report that after weeks of working hard with my great designer, Peter Tigler of Los Angeles, my web site is up and running in all its newness! I have learned many things as I have evolved as a fine artist making my way in the world of getting seen and making my mark and Lord knows I probably still have much to learn, but hopefully, this current evolution of my site will represent my art in the best light yet.
I have learned to streamline what I show and to make sue that my website is very user friendly and the images of my artwork are displayed in as large a format as possible.
Each time I have updated my web site, I have felt as though I accomplished these tasks, yet each time I change it, I see where I could have gone further the time before. Oh well!
Please take some time and visit www.lindanewmanart.com and let me know what you think of it!
Today I wanted to share a blog by Heather Taylor of Los Angeles. Heather is co-owner/curator of the Los Angeles gallery TAYLOR DE CORDOBA and blog goddess of the blog:LA in BLOOM.
http://lainbloom.blogspot.ca/
I became acquainted with Heather's blog through my love of her gallery. Without question I would like to show my artwork there. Her posse of artists is unique and and chosen with a discerning and delicate eye. There is a spiritual under-tow to all of the artwork that shows there that I love and relate to.
When doing research on the gallery and on Heather, I came upon a gem- her blog!
She features great articles on food and recipe's, jewelry and clothing....home accessories and they all come from that same wonderful place that her choice of artists comes from...beauty, spirit and a sort of inherent purity.
She is inspired and generous with what she shares. Her blog has an amazing list of blogs she follows and likes and I found a few to follow regularly there myself.
I hope you visit her blog and really look around at all she has to offer there. It's wonderful, really, and above all brimming with beauty.
