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| Inner Landscape |
“I can’t take it anymore.” Those were the words that flew out of my mouth this morning when I woke up. “I can’t paint, my energy is all tied up with survival.” More words literally flying from me . . . What is it that I “can’t take anymore?” Time to reflect.
I know myself well enough to know that when I feel, “I can’t take it,” I’m really giving voice to an internal wall or boundary, a limit I’m bumping up against. Like a smoke detector alerts the inhabitants to a fire in the house, this proclamation alerts me to be mindful that I’m living with and tolerating circumstances that for me are intolerable. Somewhere deep inside the balance has tipped and like a wild animal clawing at the door of it’s cage thirsting for freedom so does my internal unrest lie unsettled until the moment of liberation when the door opens and out pours the creature of my declaration--raw, wild and unpolished. After a breath to pause and reflect I doubt it’s that “I can’t,” as much as I don’t want to, and furthermore, that I’m unwilling to continue on in the current situation. To me, this is an important distinction. It offers more territory for assessment, choice and action . . . Without which I would remain a victim of the circumstances of my life. I chose to be the creator of my life.
I’m a classic introvert. At gallery shows when I’m openly greeting people, freely and fluidly engaging in conversations with high energy I don’t look like an introvert. To someone who doesn’t know me I look like a dyed-in-the-wool, highly social extrovert. What can’t be seen without intimate knowledge of my person, is my rapidly draining internal battery that at some point begins looking toward the door, hungering for the stillness and quiet to recharge. I can love the event, conversations, and contact with people while the units of my energy are continually depleting. It’s the way I’m built. I’ve learned to balance the social with enough time and space for solitude on my front porch, my only the companions being the birds, trees, my lovely centered and faithful dog, and the calming influence of the lapping water on the shoreline of the lake.
I live from the inside out, always. I have strong introverted muscles habituated to mulling things over quietly, deep inside. The time it takes until they make it to my mouth can vary by degrees, often surprising myself and those around me. My internal workings are like that of the process of child-bearing. Where the unborn infant is growing and maturing over a complex, lengthy gestation, so are my unborn words and subsequent actions. It simply takes me time to sort through disturbance. I may know something is out of balance and not have access to the particulars as quickly as I’d like. Along the way I write, paint, spend time alone and outside in the natural world to get a grasp on that which is seeking birth. By the time I say, “I can’t take it anymore,” and entire thought world has grown into a life of it’s own.
I continually work with expressing my thoughts and feelings along the way. I have gained some level of competence at articulating discomfort before it comes out, but in general, it’s never as speedy as I’d like, and consistently shocking to other’s in what must seem like explosive declarations. I see that my introversion is moderating to a degree, leaving some space for the development of a more extroverted way of being. I am making progress . . . and, I am who I am. When pressures mount I hold the disturbance inside for a long time. Like an injured animal retreating into a dark cave to heal, I come home to the quiet landscape of my soul. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that I refer to my body of work as, “Inner Landscapes.”
I have every confidence that I will get under the disturbances that gave voice to my morning declaration. I won’t rest until I give birth to understanding of the turmoil as best I can. I will hunt my prey, stalk my mysteries until, at some point a cooling breeze will pass over, in and through my inner landscape . . . I will find momentary rest until the scent of the next leg of The Hunt.
That’s what this artist is thinking about today . . .
About the painting . . . I experience the inner world as a place where spacious neutrality and vivacious life exist in a rich harmony. The shards of gold at the intersection of the red and white color fields speak to the kinetically alive intersections of thoughts and feelings in the inner world of each one of us.