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.