Archive for the 'making art' Category



265. My heart has been here already (the door)

You will have to imagine the picture for this entry.

Imagine a few wide horizontal lines, painted with a soft pastel in brown, any brown that you like. The lines overlap and, together, create one thing that travels now and now and now. It travels joyfully, like a dolphin in water. Sometimes one of the lines becomes bigger. At other times another one does it. Sometimes the colors change. Let it be painted by your heart.

Now in words.

The big picture:

I hear a bird outside. I don’t recognize it. But somewhere, in a deep place in me, Of course I know it. And I think: this bird sings from my heart. Then I think: everything that happens in this world comes from my heart. The buildings, the people on my block. There are many of them. I live in New York City. The street here is like a canyon. The precipices on each side are made of some eight floors apartment buildings that are more than a hundred years old. The number of people who live on my block is probably 300 times greater than the number of people who lived in the village of my youth.

And everything, all these people, the dust and soot, the funny and strange cars, the way the sunlight manages to come in and paint parts of the walls, all are coming from my heart.

This is the big picture for our purposes now.

The small picture:

What do I want to do?

For 14 years I was a designer, and changed to an illustrator. Then, after 17 years I changed to an art therapist. Now, 13 years later, I’m changing again. The change happens by itself. Usually people don’t let the change go through, because, logically, it does not make sense to start everything anew, when the old thing is working already and even gets you some recognition and acknowledgement.

But I learned not to stand in the change’s way, because I suffer if I do not follow my heart.

So the new thing was here already and was doing itself. It did not come from any ’sense-making.’ But I did not recognize this clearly yet.

At first I thought I wanted to live like an artist now. The studio was calling me. All the paints were getting excited.

But I also wanted to write and make books and children’s books. My life would be too bad without making them.

And what about living on the path that leads deeper and deeper into the truth of everything?

And what about sharing what I find with others who are interested? This is one of the most beautiful things that I can do. What else is there to do here, on earth?

And I wanted to make music.

And so went my thinking and I did not know what to do.

I’ve learned that when I have such a weighty question, it is best to keep it as a question and since this is after all a matter of the heart, I’ll invite the heart to answer. It always answers in its time. So every time the question came, I gave it to the heart: Here, this is the question I am looking for an answer for.

And one day, when I was in a short meditation, and the question was tickling, the answer came:

The blog.

I ‘work on myself’ all the time and the blog accompanies me as I go. I use artmaking and reading the art as my main method, so I have the art and the writing. It is already like a book. I can, at some point, collect some entries according to a subject that I’ll choose and make a book out of them. Or even more than one book. Sometimes it has illustrations too. Everything that I do from love and interest is already included in the adventure of the blog making. I have a conversation with other people too.

Everything that I did in my life was always about these same things, about development, freedom, beauty, living meaningfully. It is as if I have been doing this blog all my life.

And for income I can exchange the art that is created along the way with money that will pay for my life. It’s all very flexible. Things can be added, directions can change.

And in this way, with all these thoughts coming in very fast and quietly, everything fell into place.

When this clicked into place I felt a huge relief. I knew that everything was okay. And there was no need to change anything, as I was already there. For a while i made sure that I did only what I wanted to do. Tis opened the door for my heart to choose for me, and I was already where I wanted to be.

In my meditation when this knowing appeared, I saw an image in my imagination. I saw a few wide lines made with a dark brown soft pastel. The lines overlapped, just as the colors usually overlap in my paintings, and became one expression. This is the essence of this blog.

So I answered, for those who were interested. And now, back to life.

263. A day free from school

I wouldn't mind

I wouldn’t mind

having a big room where

on the clean floor

somewhere farther than the middle

this

will stand

just a line

maybe dark grey

as here

and people will get

a little book

of white thick paper

and a beautiful small collection

of very soft oil crayons

to do anything they want

with color

and I will go away

to sit in the garden

with a cup of

coffee

and infinity

then

people will come to me

with their color works

and we will laugh

like children

on a free day

from school.

262. What will happen next?

free

I thought about this many times lately. It was like an old friend, knocking on my window to wake me up.

Drawing is my most direct expression. When I started doing abstract drawings many years ago, I was thinking about sculptures that I wanted to make. I did not have the how to, the where to, and I was busy doing other things that I thought were what I wanted to do.

But the ideas were insistent and felt as if they were calling me. So I drew them. Almost all my abstract drawings for years were sketches for sculptures. In my imagination I was making sculptures all the time.

Then the drawings started to have a life of their own. They were independent of everything else, and I did them as final artworks.

A friend from Germany created an opportunity for me, to have an exhibition in Koln. I sent pictures of my works and the deal was made. I leafed through my many drawings and those I chose, I decided to sew onto canvases. I had an old sewing machine but I did not know how to use it. I remembered seeing my grandma sitting at an old Zinger and I imitated all that I remembered her doing, and the machine started to sew.

I started to draw with the sewing and at the same time that it connected the drawings to the canvases, it became part of the drawings. I let the ends of the threads hang from under the canvases. Then some of the instruments I had on my table as I was working found their way onto the canvases too, with some glue, as they seemed to be just what was needed there. Then came words. Some paintings had a word or two. Others had poems.

For a month and a half the works hang in the gallery. I had a good review in the local newspaper. The curator of one of the museums visited my show. I made friends with other artists and I went to visit their shows.

All the works were not just rectangular with straight edges. They had irregular shapes and stuff extended from their edges into the space around them. This is the point here. Irregular shapes, and breaking away from being restricted into rectangles.

Then I participated in a collage class and all the works that I did there refused to be blocked in a straight lined frame. They all had things sticking out of them.

In this drawing I thought about a sculpture again and I let the shapes play in a big shapeless background. I cropped it for the blog, but the frame here does not have as an important part as the cropping has in all the other paintings in this blog.

In this painting there is not even one little part that is not totally alive with the experience of now.

Is it a plate with something on it?

Is it a ship, traveling on a golden sea?

Is it a jungle with a cloud?

Is it about having been in a place where food was ready for me on the plate, and a ship has come to take me out of the jungle onto the open, golden sea?

Now, what will happen next? “What will happen next” is a pregnant question and all is good.

262. The sixth bull

The sixth Bull

The pink

Is riding the ochre

The pink is a saint

We know this by the halo

He’s also a juggler

And even if his clubs

Fall

They never reach the ground

Just like him

The drawing lines

Try to be

A judge

A piano

A horse

A boat in Venice

To make the people laugh

Going forward

He looks at us

The watchers in the air

Who know

That nothing is happening

At all

And this is why

We laugh

Like children.

260. The art that you are

the 29th day (1)

As soon as I finished it and I wanted to go to bed, I felt that there was something good in it.

I saw it in passing two more times that night and the feeling was still there.

In the morning it became clear to me that I really like this one very much.

This one does not go anywhere. Yes, you can feel that it is part of a bigger scene, and there are more things beyond the borders of the paper, but there is no feeling of wanting to go out, or of any other struggle. There is only the interest in what is happening here now.

The lines and the areas of color join together in a local play. The main interest for me is in how the different color areas touch each other and blend to a degree, but stay independent too. Like the different tastes in a dish that feel good together and at the same time you can tell exactly what are all the ingredients that were mixed in it.

It’s a delicate pleasure and my heart sings. Even though a whole day has passed, it still sings, and that’s the power of real satisfaction.

The most satisfying feeling that one can have as a human being is to experience the truth of who he is. Maybe it is a strange thing to read now, and I can write about it some time later, to make the idea open to everyone. In my life experience I found this to be true.

When we feel unsatisfied, we try to make the experiences that moved us stronger, longer, more pronounced in some way. But this does not really bring more satisfaction. It brings more wanting and frustration.

To find what is deeply and truly satisfying, find a way to get calm and develop an interest in your own inner responses to what is happening now. In those energy movements that you can detect in your being as responses to what is happening to you now, and in your curiosity about them, you will find the main road to knowing yourself and to the beauty, art and truth that you are.

259. Don’t worry, Mama

P1000428

Under the drawing lines there are only two shapes. One is yellow. One is multi colored. The drawing lines above the second, bigger shape, were used as borders among the colors. The drawing and the multi colored shape became glued to each other through this. They became one.

But from the top of the multi color shape, the drawing continued to go out into the world and play.

-Come back, drawing. Time for dinner.

-But it is so much better to play out here. Do you hear, Mama? The yellow shape shouts “Catch me!” But no, I’m not going to hold on to anything. -Shine on, yellow. Be free like me. Don’t worry Mama. We are going to have a good time, all of us. Look: I’ve already made some fruit!

-Oy vey, my child is leaving…

(This was my subconscious.)

258. I am

P1000443

I am.

I think of A.

I make A out of myself.

In order for A to be A, it needs B all around it.

So B is created too just as I create A.

Now A, a part of me who is different from everything else, and B, also a part of me who is different, interact with each other. The interaction is an experience. I feel how the energy of the experience moves inside of me. I can feel it because it is different from the calm me.

Now, if I give A the ability to change at will, the result will be that different B’s will be created around the different A’s. And every pair of A and B will create a different experience in me.

When you are the only being in existence, you need to be innovative, if you want to somehow know that you are, or to know your potential.

Without creating you don’t know yourself.

Creating is the way to self-knowledge (and self-love).

If you ever have the question “Who am I?” Create, and you will know at least one way that you can be.

You will know much more. You will know yourself in a deeper way.

You will know satisfaction. You will know flexibility, you will know that magic is how things are always done, and you will know that there is no final knowledge. You will also know that there is no truth. There is only the now experience.

257. Layers

P1000426

Yesterday and today I did two new paintings. I did them small. You finish faster this way and are able to see what you made immediately.

I look at the second one now, the one I just finished.

The first one is also interesting to share and maybe it will be in the next entry.

I wonder again about the function of the second layer, the layer of the colors.

The way it looks in this painting is that the line-work is the story, rich in details, like reality itself. It also means that it has in it all the stories that I have used to create this reality. That’s just another way to say it.

And the colors layer with the simplified shapes is a second way to tell that same story. Only it is devoid of the dramas of the first layer and loaded with (my) sense of beauty, which is a characteristic of the language of the real.

These two layers/languages work together through me to create my experience of everything. I experience all the busy details with all the contrasts, difficulties, hesitations, scares and daringness. And I also experience the deeper play of the energies that reveal more beautiful mixtures as steps occur. Again, when I write ‘beautiful,’ I mean my experience of beauty. In the deeper layer there is a sense of peace that is not in the story level.

The lines can be irritating, worrisome, too fast to attend to in a full way, but the existence of the deeper view at the same time and in the same place gives the calm feeling of: everything is okay. We are moving from one beautiful thing to another. Things work together. It is a good world, hiding right under the busy illusion.

You choose to go out (into reality) and you become more worried and more irritated. You choose to step in and you heal. You find the freedom and the satisfaction of meeting with your true self.

What is your true self?

It is a moving target. It is always in the deepest place that you can access now. Tomorrow it may be even deeper.

255. Two about light and you

p1000409

The flowers grow in all kinds of shapes

The light in the flowers

Is your light

The light in all things

Is your light

Every little speck of dust

Is a door

The door is always open

Come, go through it

Come and meet us where you are.

p1000411

There is light in the white areas

There is light in the ochre

There is light in the black and grey

I am in the black of all shapes

You are in the white of all

And we do not know

We tell each other ochre stories

We laugh and we cry

We say: I am ochre, who are you?

Are you ochre too?

Don’t tell anybody that I said this

These are actually

Only words.

254. Inviting beauty to look at pain

p1000407

As you see

The areas overlap

And struggle with each other

For control of the same space

And what if they knew

That the same space

Is open and given to every one of them

With no limitations

All with love and joy and acceptance

Be they as they want to be

And the radiating hurt

Is like roots

Trying to hold on

With fingernails

To a piece of ground with no water

Or food

Bt they can change their experience

And feel blessed

In being able to dance that dance

And infinite number of others

For all eternity

With nothing to loose

Nothing to gain

Just joy.


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The healing process

Entries 1-58 show how I use the method of Intuition Through Art to heal myself from Peripheral Neuropathy.

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