Fountain of Nourishment

Works in progress

6 Aug

For me, painting is one of the rare times when I can feel fully present in the moment. Kids do this naturally, but as adults, most of need to make this a conscious effort.

When we're in the moment, we can allow inspiration to flow. We can follow our intuitive hunches, without needing things to 'make sense' or happen the way we think they should.

This feels good to me, especially because I spend so much time in my Life worrying about what might or might not happen. Through painting, I have found a place to cultivate freedom.

There comes a point in every painting when a story begins to emerge. Over time, the intuitive hunches build into a narrative and suddenly, a pathway begins to unfold. One minute, we're treading water and suddenly, land appears. It's always an exciting moment!

Today I added a white arched vine to this painting, leading down through dandelions and into a lotus in a bowl. I didn't consciously make this story up, I only painted for a few minutes before I picked my boy up from kindy, and these were simply the next ideas that came to my mind. It didn't need to make sense.

But as synchronicity would have it, when I left my studio and turned to close the door, from afar I noticed the white vine looked just like a fountain of water, aimed with the perfect trajectory to nourish the bowl.

Art really is such a window into the soul ... and this painting feels like a perfect metaphor for my Life at the moment. It seems so fitting that as I'm dedicating time to heal and fill myself with loving kindness, this would unconsciously appear in my work. It's truly a gift to experience this.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm being led somehow when I paint, by an intelligence wider than my narrow human scope can fathom right now?

Maybe we all are in this Life.

Sometimes we're the viewer and other times the creator, sometimes we're the fountain and other times, we're nourished by it.

The dance between these spaces is where the magic lies.

I think when we can allow ourselves to be present to our experience in Life, whichever part of ourselves needed can come to the fore and make the perfect decisions with/for us, every time. This takes great trust and courage to step into the unknown, and it applies as much in Life, as it does in Art.

Have you ever had a similar experience of unfolding, trusting or spontaneous insight? I would Love to listen to your story and I'm sure others would too.

All my Love, Chrissy x