Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Creativity

The process of making this art piece is the strongest manifestation of creativity that I personally ever experienced.




A few years ago, I 'carried' (no better way to express it!) a piece of art inside me. It was a feeling, bubbling inside me. It was not representational, it was not an idea, nor was it expressed in any other pieces that I was painting at that time. It was there, lingering, growing, waking me up at night. But I did not know how and when it would come out.
When I was painting, I stored it somewhere inside me ~ sort of in a drawer, because I knew it was too precious to exploit a little here and a little there. I loved it, but was afraid of it. I nurtured it, while it tortured me. I avoided it when it screamed at me to be let out, yet I begged it to come closer. I did not know when or how. But I knew it was stronger than 'I'. I knew it was growing inside me and it probably did so for years ~ later in an awakened conscious way, earlier silently, patiently, diligently.
One morning, I awoke, walked by my studio as I always did. It consisted of a room adjacent to my bedroom in my then apartment at the heart of Montreal. It was summer, it was hot and all the windows were opened. I heard traffic, dogs, birds, cicadas, passers-by... I smelled summer. I smelled the city. I smelled life.
I went into my studio and saw a bunch of canvases on the floor. And then, CREATIVITY took over. True creativity. The kind that cannot be explained, understood, intellectualized... only loved and revered. I believe this is creativity of the soul ~ when the head does not interfere.
I (or some higher being) picked up a hammer and nails and starting amalgamating these canvases together. Essentially, a larger canvas was born, with this new awesome stimuli of lines and separations. I then picked up my brushes and paint... and I painted for three days and nights, without any consciousness of other earthly experiences. At the end of the process, I stood back, looked at the piece and wept powerfully ~ emotionally, physically, completely. 
The piece had left my body ~ via CREATIVITY. 
I felt liberated, yet I missed how this power was once inside me. It was now gone, now on a canvas. It was part of the physical world. It was staring at me. It was a part of me ~ out there ~ forever.
I have never had as strong of a creative process before or since. I do not believe that I have ever 'created' as powerful a piece. Will I again? I hope.
This painting is a sort of metaphor of my path of life up until then. It is a reminder to me of Self ~ of true Self, where I aspire to remain every moment of my life ~ within Self. I sometimes lose my self in the context of earthly experiences of life. But when I look at this piece (I can only look at it on photo now!), called: HeadHeart&Soul (read from bottom to top!), I come back to self, and remember how I got here. It reminds me that I know that It was in me somewhere, at some time and that it could come back again some other time.
Thank you for reading. 
Thank you for enabling me to write ~
and feel these feelings of creative bliss!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Head Heart & Soul
Acrylic on canvas
six streched canvases
joined together with hammer & nails (and Love!)
approx.: 60"X48"
SOLD (fortunately & unfortunately!)

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