Faces

lots of faces… in watercolour, fabric and oils. I got some big canvases the last time I was in Chihuahua and painted some huge faces and it was great!

Faces are for seeing, for revealing who you are, for validating what i do (as I paint there is someone watching me) for exploring who I am.

I finish a face a realise it’s sad or happy or has a sense of purpose to it and it surprises me.

Faces i suppose go all the way back to babyhood when its the first thing that catches our attention. Our mothers face. A baby reacts to things that have the same structure as a face. They will look at faces quicker than anything else.

I sing…

loudly, quietly, out of tunely, sweetly, because I like to, silly songs, happy songs, about love, sadly, in the shower, alone, with friends.

my threadless submission for a design challenge where the words have to be part of the design. x

things I have realised

I have been self exploring lately, always a good thing to do and always there are some gems waiting to be discovered in the knot of my tangledom.

Paul asked me to write him a few lines about the workshop I had done and I was thinking about what to write and then I thought hey i could write a post and then tell him to read it! (hi gorgeous..x)

The weekend workshop was called the Language of Love and so people arrive maybe expecting how to make their relationship better with their partners but end up looking at their relationship with themselves. How can I love someone else if I don’t love myself? or if I am working from fear and a need to keep men happy how can I truly be myself in a relationship. This is the stuff we looked at.. ourselves. The beloved inside that so often gets silenced and ignored to try to control our partner and change him instead of just loving and being happy.

Women sometimes keep themselves small so men will stick around. I know I have done this and I remember realising I do this, stay in a place of needing help or not truly expressing myself just in case I end up on my own with nobody to love me. boo hoo poor little cliodhna .

It is important for me to express myself for me and express myself with my partner, I am too used to keeping secrets, and not even big secrets but just things I don’t want to admit to myself and so definitely don’t want to admit to anyone else, especially not a man I am having a relationship with. I might lose control and he will see me as weak and not want to be with me. But the thing is every time I push myself to talk and be really open it actually brings us closer together. Maybe I am slow learner and I have run away from commitment in the past but its a really nice discovery, oh look I can actually talk about this and it makes it better.

What else did I get from the weekend, a wonderful connection to me that I had been struggling to find and a sight of the wonderfulness of everything. we walk around in our boxes and thats all they are, a thin layer of cardboard between us and the hugeness and marvelousness of the world. that beetle song.. all you need is love.. true and thats all there is too but we create our worlds out of it and construct our shapes to live in and all it really is is light/love/energy we can make anything we want out of.

I am taxing my car tomorrow so no more excuses and this is another place in my life where I have let other people be in charge and didn’t take responsibility for my life. Fear of the future ‘what if’ , fear of being truly in power of my own life. No more! I am trying to think of a name for the car, I think she is a she, she is a gusty she with a rumble in her voice I like.

So I hope this is a good few lines for Paul. I push him quite a lot I think, but I think he can handle it. He gets a nervous look on his face when I say I need to talk, like he’s in trouble, and then a look of relief when he sees I just need to vent. Hey, maybe I can persuade him to write a post about it! What do you think Paul? huh? huh? x

Oil painting

I finished the two paintings I was working on. Time to tell the story. Paul kept asking me what they were about and I would just say ‘you know, freedom’ very articulate I know but sometimes I can’t say until they are finished and I am so much better at writing this than saying them. So here it is!

I had a dream about a wee brown bird. I took this brown bird away from where it was living because I wanted to protect it. The bird was angry with me for having done this and was going to fly back to where it came from. I was really worried about it because I figured it was too small to do this safely but then I looked and the brown bird had turned into a young man with a backpack on his back and I realised he could do it if he wanted.

The moral of the story? wee brown birds are perfectly capable of looking after themselves

The meaning of the dream? I am that part of me that I figure can’t look after myself. I mother the bird, trying to protect it and it gets angry with me for not letting it live its own life. The bird/young man is that part of me that is very able to take care for itself but just looks small and fragile right now. I have to stop trying to look after it and trying to keep it by me but let it fly and go where it wants to go. Let myself go where I want to go and do what I want to do and trust myself and my wishes and heart wants in life.

I will have the other finished painting and the story behind it in a day or two..

x

Sorrow/Happiness

I was doing a tarot reading with Paul last night, the osho zen tarot, I love them. They have a directness and a simplicity and a connection with here and now that I like. Anyway, I asked for me and ’sorrow’ came up and I was explaining to Paul that, for me, to really release sorrow you have to go into it and experience it and not try to run from it into control (whatever form that takes.. television, books, cigarettes, food, anger, however) and also what was I hanging onto in my life that I didn’t want to let go of, didn’t want to fully mourn and accept that it was gone. For me also tears are about the fear of letting go, the mind goes to fear and out come the tears.

I started a path about three years ago working with the toltec teachings and I don’t think I have ever cried so much and in front of people too! Its my first port of call and sometimes I hate it and try not to and other times I accept it and accept the fact that it will pass in time.

I know when I am in control because I feel a pushing in my solar plexus, a frustration, a want that cannot be satisfied, anger, a feeling of wanting to pick a fight, a need to make someone else wrong or make them little. It is my flag, this feeling, that it is time to relax, let myself fall into truth of here and now, stop trying to twist the world into my idea of how it should be and let it flower in its own time. I think I have been feeling this way recently, I have been doing so much administration, getting the past in order, setting up structures (like this blog and my shop) looking at other amazing blogs, making a web of myself on the ephemeral world that is cyberspace, that I fell into the illusion of control, I could, by much action, shape my world into happy and successful.

This is my fear, an old one, to control how others see me, to make them like me, to manipulate the world so I get what (i think) I need. The fear of really truly being exactly who I am right now because it might not be enough and the sorrow is to let go of the facade and let truth shine through. There is only truth.

The second card I got was ’sharing’, the image of a woman offering a bowl of fruits. She has so much she can give and she gives from endless abundance. This is the way past my fear, to share with the world what I have because each of us has a unique path and wisdom to give to the world and there is always enough for everyone. My mum used to say that we each born with our own packet of love and each child had his/her own.

I have been connecting with others who are on the same path as I. I got a wonderful email this morning from A Fanciful Twist (a really cool blog I discovered recently) which gave me a smile and encouragement. And of course Paul, the ever present love, with his own viewpoint on life. Sometimes we are completely in sync with each other and sometimes it’s immovable force meets unstoppable object! He got ‘the master’ card in this reading last night, but you know, I think I am going to ask him to write something from himself for that!

So, a deep breath, relax, time to put the admin in perspective and stop organising for a while. I am going to get the oil paints out this morning. I ADORE the smell of oil paints, they surround me in a cloud of magic or possibility, don’t know why but they do. Start creating and letting it flow once more. If anyone is feeling too much ‘doing’ and trying to control this morning, sit back, have a cup of tea, get a piece of paper maybe and doodle or write or hum a tune or sit under a tree or ring a friend you haven’t talked to in ages. These are the things which make us happy!

x cliodhna

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why do I paint pictures?

I have been asking myself this question recently, why do I do art? why do I paint pictures or make things for people to buy and also the question what do I really want to say?

I think the two are intricately intertwined. I have had a realization recently about my art and my self expression as a whole. I remember about six years ago now (how time goes!) I realised that if I wanted to do what I love as a living it was going to have to pay for itself, so, without compromising my self-expression I was going to have to get out there into the world and do the business angle and sell myself. I have struggled with this, wanting to find someone to do it for me or not being ready or chaffing against the rhythm of having shows or looking for galleries and the slow growth into a recognised artist. What ever that means in my head.

I have realised recently that underlying that intention was a need for approval from the world. A seeking of validation of myself as an artist from others outside of me. Yes, there is a balance of accepting feedback and considering suggestions, but not when that need comes between me and my true self-expression. With this intention of looking for approval this part of me that needs this validation is constantly trying to edit what I say or draw to fit how it thinks it needs to be to get the desired result. This sabotages my conscious decision to make my own path. It sneaks into everything, how I price my pictures, how I plan frames and display, how I approach galleries.

This leads onto what I want to say in my art. I have come to a stop here. I have to silence that unconcious intent or change it to be able to listen to my own voice and let it flow. Not be afraid to be silent until I have something to say. My best art has come from a free flow of ideas from a sure place of calmness. The watercolours I did in madrid and the acrylics I did in mexico were I feel, looking back, the first upsurgings from my own creative well that I saw this flow and allowed it to happen. Some of them work better than others for me or say more but that doesn’t matter, in their simplicity they each say exactly what was in that moment. I learnt from that feeling of flowing and that is where I need to go to find the source.

Why do I paint? because it makes me happy, seeing what emerges, smelling the oil paint or the shine of the wet colour as I apply it, or the excitment of a new idea to start, or the satisfaction of a piece done and finished. Seeing what was once in your head now alive and part of the world, changed but still the same feeling behind it.

I am shifting this intention of needing approval and I am curious as to what is going to happen with my art. I don’t need to make beautiful things for me to feel a sense of worth in the world. I make them because I love making them and it helps me solidify and make sense of what I want to understand about myself and the world around me.

happy new 2008! x cliodhna

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