Painting makes me feel so electrically, intoxicatingly, gloriously alive.
Throughout my life I have dabbled intermittently in life's finer arts. I read French novels, taught myself dying Eastern European languages, immersed myself in folklore and traditional dance. And in my younger years, I made music on silver strings; I filled sketchbooks with paint and pencil, and spent more time than necessary on any school assignment that I could turn into a creative act.
But all along the way, other parts of life have taken unquestionable priority. My undergraduate years have taught me good business sense and the meaning of living with integrity; they have made me scientifically literate. They taught me how to bend and sway like prairie grasses in the breeze. They taught me how to grow my roots deep and wide.
And it is from this place of deeply analytical work and deeply rooted love that I have finally found art.
I used to think that great art could only come from great turmoil. I wondered if I could ever reach that sweet, sweet place of creation, where your heart beats fervently and every emption becomes urgent. How could I create beauty without a whirlwind of emotions aching to be expressed, a thousand secrets yearning to be confessed? Where would I be without unrequited love to keep me up at night?
After months of thinking about it, tonight I put a new brush to paper and painted a tree in winter. Something unremarkable, yet so different than anything else I have painted. And from within me, I felt my soul succumb to that sweet, sweet place of creation with all its urgent beauty.
Ah, so this is how to access that place in my heart. I breathe a sigh of relief.
aphesis