Rainbows

 Swimming in some kind of murky, cold water, unsure of the depth and unfamiliar with the landscape. Feet searching for the bottom while eyes scan for something to make sense, clues of reassurance. The lack of light is disorienting, and the hazy air is lost for color.  One breath at a time, one emotion, one memory at a time. One thing at a time. One. Only one. More than one is too heavy. One emotion tells you that this is water, and you need to start swimming. One memory is a flotation device. One at a time keeps the head above water. More than one takes on the water. 

When you lose someone you love, the whole world is unrecognizable. It’s disorienting. Days and hours are confused with each other. Your own life is suddenly unfamiliar and uncomfortable. This ice cold water stings, and there is nothing to do, but swim in it. Swim or sink. 

My father left this world one month ago. It was very sudden and too soon, as far as us Earth dwellers are concerned. He was 66. He knew something was wrong and did all the things you are suppose to do to save your own life. We, too, did all the things we knew to do to save his life. Yet, here we are, swimming in grief. 

As it turns out, this past year of creating art was like a season of conditioning. My work led me right up to the doorstep of loss. Through my art, I had already asked some very “big picture” questions:

What is life on Earth about? 

What is pain and hardship about? 

What actually is fear, and where does it come from?

And, what about courage?

I allowed the questions themselves to become my inspiration for my art. And, I got my answers… simply by asking the questions. I wanted to better understand something, so I just raised my hand and asked, and then, I paid close attention. I trusted every artistic suggestion, every impulse, unsure of how my answers might arrive. And then they came, the answers flooded my heart and bones as I did the work He asked me to do; paint. He answered me, as I answered Him.

For me, painting is spiritual. As I paint, I allow music to guide my heart to specific realizations. My process of creating art has a lot to do with music. I believe that music was created in the same way my art is created; through a spiritual sense of inspiration and curiosity.

My questions led me to develop a deep and metaphorical understanding of pain in comparison to water. Pain is in the rivers we cross throughout our journey. In the fall, as I painted “Wade Through I & II” I listened to Chris Stapleton’s words, and he walked me through the muddy waters of my own pain until I reached an understanding of life on Earth and the hardships that come with it. Life is not about staying clean and tidy. It is not meant to be painless and pretty. It hurts. It stings. It is frightening at times. And, with that recognition, I layered in the concepts of fear which I had gathered in the same way earlier in the same year. Fear is like a heavy weight; something that keeps us anchored, it keeps us from moving and living. But, there is no fear where there is faith. With faith there is trust- even amongst the dark threats of loss and pain. So, I concluded that pain is inevitable, but not fear. Replace fear with faith and then…viola- there you have courage; the ability to trust and live, the ability to move forward into something purposeful. But, life is not all about doing hard, painful things. It’s not all about avoiding fear. A point comes, when it’s all been said and done, when we rinse off the mud and muck, and we find ourselves on the other side. This is a place where we get to rest our tired bones, where there is no more darkness, only color and light. 

That clarity eased my heart; we are meant to do hard things, and pain isn’t forever. Ok, got it. That felt like a good conclusion to my series of painted questions. But, I had no idea my perspective would so quickly shift again, that it could rise even higher, that these answers were only the prep work.  Something truly painful was just ahead, something that would lead me to draw an even more vivid conclusion about what it means to exist on Earth and thereafter.

It was Tuesday December 30th, my dad called to wish me a happy birthday. He told me he was glad I was born, and I said, “Thanks to you.”, which was a weird thing to say. So we laughed. 

He said, “I love you.” 

I said “I love you, Daddy. Take care of yourself.” 

“I love you, too. Good night.”

I’ll never forget that group of words. 

That night, he closed his eyes in the dark and woke up in The Light. Like that amazing song by the Avetts, I imagine he walked up to the Savior True shaking hands laughing… walking through the night, straight to the light….  And, as John Prine wrote, I can hear my dad thanking God for more blessings than one man can stand… I bet he went and found his mom and dad, too. But, it wouldn’t have been a vodka and ginger-ale he ordered. Although, I’m sure he found his own version of happy hour. With my own vision, and in my own words, I imagine he found the perfect tree to sit and lean up against in heaven’s woods, a place where he can observe and admire the glory land, noticing all the details in the same way he took in the artistic beauty of Earth. 

This was a man who loved nature and observed details so fine. He was not an artist, but he was quick to take credit for me being one. He was creative and observant, and he taught me to notice. My brother has told me that our dad watched hawks like I do. Daniel says “Dad loved hawks.”. I didn’t even realize that, at least I don’t think I did. Sometimes those details are lost, but the notion sticks around. I noticed hawks everywhere last year. I knew I was meant to notice them, too. I knew I was suppose to gather something from these soaring watchers, the ultimate noticers, but I couldn’t fully identify what they represented. I leaned in and used these birds of prey in my art. I wrote about hawks and read about hawks. Native Americans consider hawks to be courageous warriors of truth. Hawks symbolize high perspective. I knew there was something there, something relative. And, that was true. 

“You have to be honest with yourself before you can be honest with anyone else.” He shared those words with us daily. Those words have infiltrated me to the bone. It is what I represent and carry out through my work, what I hope to inspire in others. It is all about truth and trust. Trust what you perceive, what you sense, and believe that it is true. Be boldly honest with yourself. 

I can’t imagine that a hawk perched up high sits there worrying about what the owl next door thinks of him or second guessing his primal instincts. The hawk is a powerhouse bird. Dude knows his skillz… he’s confident, patient and perceptive. 

The truth is, sometimes my observations and my conclusions derived from animal sightings and music lyrics, it all sounds hokey. I can admit that. It might sound fake and forced. I can hear the skeptics and surface level people saying, “Oh, come on…you see what you’re looking for. You hear what you want to hear.” And that may be true for some folks, but when I’m honest with myself, I can tell the difference between truth and false.  I can tell the difference between my heart and my head. When God speaks to me, it comes through my heart. It is subtle and easy to miss, but it is truth, undeniably. That voice has proven its power. It is real, and it is worth trusting. 

After weeks of paddling around in the water of grief, I was struggling to get back to my studio…until I remembered some advice my dad gave me this past fall. He taught me to compartmentalize; to organize pain into categories in order to make it manageable and eventually useful. This advice taught me to concentrate on one thing at a time to keep from getting overwhelmed, as I easily do. Placing one foot in front of the other walked me back into my studio. Mixing one color at a time created a scheme. Working with one idea at a time, I created one painting at a time. Just one kept me moving forward. Just one kept me from taking on water. It kept me swimming versus sinking. Until, suddenly, paint was pouring out onto canvases all over the studio. I’ve been constructing little narratives and dialogs on canvas in every corner of the room. Some are with God, some with my dad, some are framed versions of his new perspective, some of my new perspective. Inspiration is coming though me like bottleneck traffic in Atlanta. This big, broad picture has come in tight and close. I’m sensing things I’ve never sensed before. I can’t fit it all in a days work or within the space of my studio. Suddenly, there is so much to make out of this, so many colors to paint. 

I’ve learned it’s pretty common after a loss, to pray for a visit, like a sign or a dream, some kind of recognition and reassurance that your person is in God’s hands. Some people plead for a sense of comfort that all is well, and they receive it in all different shapes and forms. And, these people who’ve had the dream or the sign, they trust that it is a visit from their lost person. It’s that heart and head thing, the truth versus the false can be clear as day when you yourself experience it. But, when you hear it without relating, it can sound unreal. I was unsure of how to use this material, how to share this or whether is was necessary to share at all. But, it was too colorful not to share. It was too bright to just sit on a shelf. So I’m passing the light. 

“Well, Darlin' (“Goo”) I'm just tryin' to tell ya...That there's always been a rainbow hangin' over your head.

If you could see what I see, you'd be blinded by the colors, 

Yellow, red, and orange, and green, and at least a million others.

So tie up the bow, take off your coat, and take a look around... everything is alright now.” 

(Kasey Musgraves) 

My dad didn’t call me “Darlin”. He called me “Goo”.  (I think that came from “Silly Goose”, but it’s been “Goo” for so long I can’t actually remember.) The song said “Darlin”, but in my heart, I heard “Goo”. Allow me to preface what I’m about to say with this: my dad had nothing in common with Kasey Musgraves… or rainbows for that matter, but that didn’t seem to stop me from hearing his voice in a song called “Rainbow”. He reached out to me through her words as I painted- the same way God reaches me almost every day, and that makes perfect sense, at least to me. 

I believe God funnels himself through people doing His work, the work He calls on us to do. He comes to us when we are putting trust in His design. He puts himself in the words and sounds of a musician, through the colors and strokes of an artist, through the people who glorify His gifts and His creation. These are the light passers. That’s why those of us who are noticers are also charged with being passers. We don’t get these inspirations for our own good and stop there. It is meant to be shared for the good of someone else. Even if it is only one someone else. When the light gets passed, it’s a beautiful thing. Light becomes inspiration. But, what happens when light passes through water, through someone’s pain? Light through water becomes color; a spectrum we refer to as a rainbow. Not a sparkly, shiny rainbow, but a spectrum of honest and true color. A spectrum of hope.

That word, rainbow, it had shown up everywhere since my dad died, but I hadn’t been able to understand how this rainbow theme applied to my dad?… It wasn’t adding up. I mean, the man had a heart of gold, but rainbows were not his thing. So, in an effort to understand it, I began to work that spectrum of colors into my art; ROYGBIV’s snuck into each composition. Then, I heard the song “Rainbow” like I was hearing it for the first time ever. And, I cried. No, I sobbed. Because I understood fully what he wanted me to know. And, in that moment I felt his hand pat my back, putting me at ease. “Everything is alright now.”

From where he sits now, leaned up against that big ole tree in heaven’s woods, he sees rainbows all the time- they never fade. He sees God’s color & light, including where and who it reaches. He wanted me to know that this color I’ve been devoted to for the majority of my life, it is not random or disconnected, it comes from far and beyond. All these weeks I’ve been stuck under the cloud of loss, like swimming in a cold creek in the middle of a rainstorm, yet all the while- color was brewing above me. The light was preparing to shine through these waters to reveal color like I’d never known before. My dad wanted to make sure I was noticing. He didn’t want me to miss a single detail. 

At the memorial service, we honored the life of Dan Haas with the song “Where Rainbows Never Die”. Despite the title, we felt his character in the lyrics. The rainbow never represented him. It represents where he is and what he sees. He sits up high like a hawk observing, taking it all in, every detail and every color, from a place where there is no darkness, only color and light. He rests now with the rainbows.

Suddenly, the spectrum of color is so close to me. It’s so strong. It is more purposeful and powerful than it was before the water came.  And, I trust that nothing about life is random. And, everything is connected. And, it does not always feel “alright”. But, it always will be all right. 

Be beautifully bold and bright in your ways. 

Trust in your heart, and value your days.

Be all that you are and nothing you’re not.

Be color. 

Be light. 

Be a bright spot.

Musical inspirations available for download on Spotify; See Sarah Otts playlist titled “Honestly”. 

To Wait or Wade?

Hard Lean 48x48, Avail 36x48

Watch out! I’m coming in hot…What in the actual fuck is going on lately? That’s what people keep saying. It’s the new, more specific version of the old, tried and true: “What the fuck?”. The old way just wasn’t cutting it this year. The old way didn’t have enough meat on the bones to satisfy us. Now, we are demanding to know more, what is actually going on? This year is just bizarre, we need some answers, details, specifics. What in God’s name is this? 

After all the hardship of this year, I’ve found myself having a hard time accessing that bright tone of mine. It wasn’t that long ago when my heart first pulled me to recognize the phrase be a bright spot. Once I leaned into it, I saw how the word bright tied my painting style to my writing style. It tied my style of expression to my style of inspiration. It has served me well, that one word. But now, it’s harder to use. This fall I’ve felt the opposite of bright. You pick the word for it. Dark? Dim? Dull? Discouraged? Yes, any of those would work. I realize we all go there, and it’s only a phase, a temporary thing. The truth is, we can’t remain constantly bright any more than the sun can remain risen. We all wallow in muddy water at times, and I’ve been waist deep lately, but certainly not alone, not this year…not any year.

I’ve been in pain, and I’ve been fed up and frustrated. Why is it taking so long to heal? I’ve been frustrated with social distancing; why does this feel so helpless and endless? I can’t tell if we are suppose to face this thing or hide from it? I’ve been frustrated with my inspiration; how am I suppose to express brightness when I don’t feel it? How do I generate inspiring art and words when I am so off color? These questions made me sink into a funk. I knew I’d have to move to get out of this hole, and I’d have to use art to do it. I’d have to paint with all that I was feeling even if what I created wasn’t bright. I, myself, had written it into the defining poem stating what it means to be a bright spot. “Be all that you are and nothing you’re not.” My art is about truth, and that is something I am not willing to forgo. So, I’d use this painful path to get to wherever I was going. I would lean on it and apply it. I’d have to put my pain to work. I’d have to wade through it. 

When I finally shuffled up to my painting palette in my huge hip brace, the color I found myself mixing was different. It was muddy, muted and deep. It looked like fall. It looked like falling. It was not vibrant, but neutral, but it was still color, and it was still light. It was a new kind of bright. And, it showed me that there is brightness even in the dark of night. There is purpose even in pain.

This pain I refer to may literally be your hurting body, but maybe the word pain represents hardship or heartbreak. As you read on, allow the word pain to represent whatever it is you find yourself dealing with on your journey.

They say everything happens for a reason, even the painful times. If everything is laid out and planned for us, if everything, including pain, is purposeful and intended, do our choices make any difference? Do our decisions affect where we end up? I think the answer has everything to do with how we react to pain. I believe the path is set out for us to follow, but fear influences how far we tread. When you come across a dark, murky river as you travel along the journey of life, will you fearfully wait or courageously trust the journey and wade through pain? 

Fear will yank on your sleeve. He wants you to sit and wait, to doubt yourself, to doubt your strength and your endurance. He wants to keep you here, stuck. Fear says, “It’s gonna hurt, you know? It’s gonna be hard, and everything will be different. Just think about that.” And, so we do. Sometimes we wait with the fear of pain. We sit on the bank wasting time while we consider how much it’s gonna suck to get wet and muddy in that river. Fear makes us ask, “Why do I have to cross this stupid river anyway? Why me? It’s not fair.”. But, when Courage shows up with her quiet confidence, she suggests otherwise. Courage would never insist you sit down and use up your time complaining about the challenges you see ahead. She is a warm, supportive hand on your shoulder prompting you to trust the journey, to trust that even the pain you may encounter along the way will have a purpose, even if you can’t see it now. Courage wills you to keep going and carry on with your journey encouraging you to wade through, pain and all.

So, there you are. You took the lead of courage, and now you’re in it, a muddy, murky river with currents pulling and ripping around you. This hurts. Fear was right. There would be pain.

Fear tries to protect you from pain at all costs. Fear wants to protect you so much that he is willing to keep you from the life you were sent to live. Courage is not afraid, though, and she reminds you that you are capable of enduring much more than fear gives you credit for. Courage will see you through to the other side carrying you on to the places where there is color and light. Courage says “Do not fear pain for it provides the kind of perspective nothing else can.”. Pain is the toll we pay to reach the light.

Ok, so, what happens when we can’t choose whether or not to wade in? Many times we are shoved into a place of pain with no choice. Sometimes we stumble into the river while hesitantly trying to keep one foot on the bank. Fear has his buddies, hesitation and resentment, helping him hold a tight grip around your ankle. For example, when we get sick we have no choice but to experience the pain at hand, but in this case our choice isn’t if we experience it, it’s how we experience it. If we are in this river while keeping one foot up there with fear then we aren’t getting anywhere. This river is no longer purposeful, it's useless. It isn’t taking us anywhere. When we aren’t willing to utilize this stretch to cover ground, we might as well be sitting high and dry and stuck with fear. Except, this is worse because, like it or not, now you're wet and muddy and stuck. You have pain with fear.

Your other choice is to ditch the fear and his idiot friends, paddle through this river which we had no choice but to get into, and trust that this too is part of the journey. Take trust as a flotation device and wade in.

Fear is a restraint that holds us back, keeps us waiting and worrying. But, not pain. Pain doesn’t keep us stuck like fear can. Only the fear of pain keeps us stuck. But, pain can be a literal restriction, so how is it that fear is the stronger force? How can fear be stronger when it is only imagined, and pain is physical? How can fear be more powerful when it is only a head game, and pain is an actual sensation coming from a broken part of the body? Fear paralyzes us by leading us to think we don’t have the strength to withstand pain. Fear can hold onto us forever, but the river of pain is often a temporary piece of the path. This is how we can find ourselves too afraid to trek towards our own lives. This is how the fear of pain can be more restricting and miserable than pain itself.

At first, it was just a small hurt, but it grew. There was no accident or injury, just a brand new pain that I could not explain. At the very beginning of this year, for the first time in my life, I had hip pain. I would come to find out that I was born with hip dysplasia, which led to a torn labrum thirty five years later and not a minute sooner. Cue 2020, the age of one thing after another. It’s stacking up high, isn’t it? And, this hip pain, well for me, it was just the latest layer on this shit cake we’ve been baking since March. 

So, what did I do about it? For the first six months, I did what lots of “busy” people do; nothing. I ignored it. I didn’t have time for pain. So, I paced around it, pretending to not notice, waiting for it to go away. Until late summer, when it was no longer something I could ignore. I couldn’t take walks or sleep. I could hardly carry my child or walk through the sand and water at the beach. When it became challenging just to stand and paint, it was time to deal with it. It was time to wade in. 

The same way that little ache grew into a big pain, a two hour repair surgery turned into months of healing. I was never very clear on what to expect for recovery, but swift was not going to be the word for it. As it turned out, my hip needed more than a little cartilage repaired. The surgeon scraped and shaped my bones to allow the ball and socket to fit together properly, dislocating the entire joint in the process. There has been pain, of course, but along with it came sleep loss, stress, depression, discouragement, even regret. These are the emotions and experiences that get unpacked when you’re keeping company with pain. But, the other thing this unwelcome house guest brought me would change the way I carried on in my journey. Perspective. 

By this point, COVID-19 had already brought us all a brand new stronger sense of fear. More than just a fear of contracting the virus, we've dreaded dealing with the whole thing and the effects it might have on our daily lives and our businesses, our educations, our economy, our waistlines, our mental freaking stability…. a fear of not knowing when or how it could strike would hang heavy like a wet blanket. The list of virus worries is long. But, that particular fear was belittled once I found myself hip deep in this other river. And, then, in 2020’s perfect timing, just as I was making progress and gaining strength crossing the muddy waters of surgery recovery, just as the other side was almost in sight…. ding! The next layer of shit cake was done baking and ready to pile on top. A little cough grew into a lot of ache, and a little cold was actually a big, well-known virus. But, it was weird…suddenly a few weeks of quarantine and a virus to rest off just seemed like another river to wade through, another way to travel through time, another opportunity to get somewhere specific. So, there I was using my hip pain’s handy hostess gift; perspective. 

What I feared for months had finally come to the door, and by the time I answered it, I was already entertaining a house guest that was an even bigger pain in the ass. Misery does love company. Join us, won’t you?

So, there we were, aching hips, COVID lungs and me, bunked up in my yellow bedroom for ten days. What a pair of roommates. Once again swapping my painting palette for a keyboard and my painting apron for pajamas. How familiar this scene was getting. How acquainted I’d become this fall with my second form of expression and that lonely sting of FOMO. This felt like my waiting room. But, I wanted to know how, instead, could I make this my wading room?

When the virus became another river to cross, I had to choose whether I would wait or wade. Will I get stuck in a fearful panic, perpetually Cloroxing and Lysoling, obsessively worrying about spreading it to my family, finding a way to control the thing, googling info, spinning my wheels, stuck in the mud? Yes. Why, yes I would, but only at first. Because then, I would remember that there is to be purpose in all times. So, instead of waiting with the fear of the worst, I just went ahead and waded in for all it’s worth. Of course, I didn’t have a choice on whether or not to have covid. The choice was in how I handled being sick. I did remain isolated from my family, and I was useless most of the time. I could hardly breathe, and I could not think to save my life; not a very productive state. I rested when I felt like resting, which was a lot, and I watched tv when my brain felt like a marshy bog, which it mostly did, but then, when I sensed a concept in it all, a place for this chapter in the epic, big picture novel of my life, of our lives, I would write. I would wake up in a moment of clarity and write something down on the nearest piece of paper or type parts of this essay, which I’d later have to make sense of. Some days I wrote for hours on hours. Some days I used every bit of brain power to generate these reflections leaving myself so mentally drained I could not talk. Not exaggerating. This virus is a brain thing. The fog was thick, but somehow, through the density, I found trust that there would be purpose in this leg of the journey, too, and so I waded in by believing that this was taking me, us, some place specific. 

I realize now that the period of denial I went through earlier this summer was another waiting room. I spent the months of July and August actually considering the option of doing nothing about my hip pain. 

I could just stay, I could just wait, live here in this place where nothing gets better and  maybe it won’t get worse if I just do nothing, right? If I don’t have the surgery, I won’t have to put my family out, or deal with that intense kind of surgery pain or the hassle of physical therapy. Still, this choice has a cost; the cost of being inactive, not moving, not getting anywhere. 

Isn’t that ridiculous? I actually considered letting fear tell me to wait… even after I had already been painting and reflecting through a deep exploration of fear and the power it has on us. Even when we are fully aware of the deceptive power of fear, we still let it yank on our sleeve. Fear is very persuasive.

If we let fear talk us into waiting, are we still on a journey? Are we still traveling through time? Or are we just wasting time, waiting for it to pass? What sense does it make to stop covering ground, taking in the lovely views just because that daunting little voice tempts us to doubt our capability, our endurance? So after considering the cost of waiting, I realized it wasn’t worth it, and I waded in. I’d find the reason for this experience on the other side of the river, but I’d have to get wet and muddy first. 

We don’t get to choose when and what rivers we come to, but we can choose our response to them. Sometimes we stumble up to a river, caught off guard and unprepared. Even then, we can trust there is a reason for us to have landed there. So, go ahead, and experience it in full. Allow yourself to feel what you feel while you're there. Take it all in for what it’s worth because it is worth something, otherwise you wouldn’t have ended up there. But, don’t pitch a tent and set up camp. Don’t stick around with fear. Don’t wait. Use this path to keep going. Even if the colors seem muted and dark, paint with them anyway. 

You may be scratching your head. Use it? How do I use pain? How do I paint with it if I’m not a painter? How do I apply this experience constructively? For starters, stop asking “how” and start asking “why?”. Why did I come here? Why do I need this moment? 

Maybe you’ve been called on. Does God want you to connect with the other people who are or will be crossing this same river? Or, maybe this is God steering you, telling you that you’re veering away from the path He has set you on or that you are missing something He’s been trying to get you to notice along the way. Maybe, He’s brought you to this river because this way, there is no getting around Him, no ignoring His purposeful plans. Sometimes, God needs to get our attention, in a way we can’t pretend to not notice.

“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world....No doubt pain as God's megaphone is a terrible instrument…”

― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Lewis is right, pain is a terrible instrument, but it is a very effective one, too. I want to cry every time I see someone running or walking down the sidewalk. I am craving exercise, I want to move my body. It’s called “feeling sorry for yourself”. It’s not a welcome feeling, and it comes with a shameful connotation. But, it’s a feeling, a temporary reaction and not a place of residence and something we should notice and utilize. Even these emotions we were taught to resist have a source and a reason for surfacing. Recognizing how we feel about our circumstances can help us compartmentalize. I’ve learned to be choosy with where and how I apply the small ration of energy and strength I’ve had since my hip problems began. I have to be decisive and designated. Could this actually be a request, one I could not ignore or walk around, a plea to shift gears, steady the pace as to not burn up the engines? A demand to get focused because Lord knows I have tried to do it all in recent years. Is this an opportunity to decide exactly what I want to put my energy towards?

A challenge must be an opportunity or else it becomes an obstruction. Pain must be purposeful or else we wouldn’t be surviving it. We bear pain. We cannot choose to put it away, to ignore it because we don’t want to deal with it. We were intended to feel it deeply. When pain gets our attention something needs to get noticed. When something needs noticing, it will be impossible to ignore. 

I trust my inspirations. I let inspiration lead me to the places I need to be. I lean into each tug allowing it to pull me towards the color and light. These days, inspiration is adamantly asking me for more specifics. Like a ruthless gossiper, it’s no longer content with my broad, vague words like heart and bright. It wants the damn truth!…about fear, courage and pain. So, I abide because it feels connected to something bigger than me. I paint and write and read and look and listen gathering up and exploring new understandings, new perspectives. 

I allowed inspiration pull me close to fear, and I’ve really gotten to know this fear fellow.  I know that he lives in our head, and I know how he teams up with hesitation, resentment and vulnerability. I recognize his tactics. I know how quickly we are to settle with fear, how strongly fear influences our choices, and how fear withholds us from walking towards the life we were sent to live.  Fear wants us to wait and wait until there is no more time left. By getting close to fear, I was introduced to courage. I know she lives in our hearts. I know that courage can effectively leave fear in its wake. I know the key to having courage over fear is knowing where each one resides, where each one comes from. One is in the heart, and one is in the head. One is associated with faith, and one is most certainly not. 

Once I drew that conclusion, inspiration got even more specific. It asked me to use what was close at hand, to lean into what hurt and make color and light with it. You want me to do what?! That felt like a wild contradiction. It didn’t feel bright. It didn’t look like my kinda color and light. But, the path had led me here, to a river, and there was no way to move ahead without going through it. How does this darkness fit into my picture? How can this be uplifting when it feels so low? I didn’t understand it at first, but I leaned in anyway. I began to paint even though it was painful. I started to share even as my voice shook. I kept trusting that there was purpose in this task, in this inspiration. And, there was. Be all that you are and nothing you’re not. Use what’s at hand. Lean in even though you don’t see what it’s pulling you towards. It wasn’t a question of how. It was a question of why.

Nothing is creatively propelling like pain. Look at all the music and art that’s been created from such a place. Inspiration has shown me that pain pushes us into a new depth and allows us to tap into an unknown reservoir of strength. And, as low as it feels, it provides us with the highest peak of perspective. 

This year, as the months progressed, as the hardships grew, as pain went from an ignorable nag to an insistent sting, as the things I feared came to the door and into the house, I become more acquainted with courage. This time last year, my body wasn’t broken, it didn’t hurt to walk and to breathe. But, this time last year, I wasn’t this strong. My heart wasn’t this trusting. I wasn’t leaning into my challenges, I was trying to keep them at a distance. My inspiration knew what was coming up around the corner. It knew this was the year to call on me in very specific ways. The whole world would come to know fear, courage and pain this year. We were all about to wade into a river. We would get wet and muddy and stuck. We would get fed up and want some answers, some details and specifics. In the most colorful way we would ask each other, “What in the actual fuck is going on”?

We are wading through a river along a journey towards a new place.

That’s what a journey is about, right? It’s about carrying ourselves through space and time towards a new place. In my moments of wading this year, I recognized that getting wet and dirty and tired along the way is part of the process, but, ultimately, if we leave fear behind and trek into the wild with a heart packed with courage and faith, one day, we wil reach the light where we will get clean and rest our tired feet. One day, I’ll wash the stubborn, oily film from my painter’s hands. But, not yet. I’ll keep getting paint under my nails, wading towards the light. There’s something out there and it pulls on me from my heart. I sense it the most when I paint, when I really get in there and make a sloppy, oily mess. I believe God made me a painter to keep me close to Him. He made me curious about color and light to pull me in, to allow me to notice things. The further down this curious path I go, the closer I get. The more I lean, the harder He pulls. 

When do we lean the hardest? At our happiest times we may be counting blessings, but are we falling to our knees desperate for guidance and strength if things are all hunky-dory? Are we grasping for something to hold onto when we feel safe and secure? No. So, maybe pain is God’s way of holding us close, keeping us noticing, keeping us inspired and aware of what should never go unnoticed. Do we walk through the dark so that we remain in need of His light? Is this His way of teaching us to trust that whatever awaits us ahead is His purposeful plan? I believe, one step at a time, He is teaching us to walk completely blinded, to lean into His pulls no matter how terrifying and contradicting the obstacles ahead may look. We don’t use our eyes to look right at the light. Instead we use our hearts. When we lean into the pulls as we wade through the rivers, we find ourselves with the strength to cross and carry on down the path.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you where ever you go. Joshua 1:9

Leave fear high and dry. Trust that every river is an essential portion of the journey you were made to travel. Wade through pain and hardship towards a place that fear cannot go.

It isn’t suppose to be clean and painless. We are not meant to know what awaits us on the other side of each river. We were only meant to trust that whatever is over there, is worth crossing for.  

Fear Year

Highs and Lows, oil on paper

All year long there have been memes generating about the year of holy terror. The year when we all became fat alcoholics. The year we don’t have to take off our pajamas for work; when we see no friends, go to no restaurants; the year we had no idea what to hang our hats on because not a living soul had experienced anything quite like this. The year we feared it all because it was all unknown. At the end of the day, is there anything scarier than not knowing what to brace for? 

I write about fear a lot. Fear is human nature, and we often let it drive how we carry out our lives. We fear loss and pain. There is fear of being judged, fear of failure, regret, shame. But, this is the year we sat on the hard, cold concrete floor with our fear of the unknown.

We are over the halfway mark in the year 2020. We’ve been sitting with fear for quite a while and our asses are getting numb and bruised. We are ready to get up, stretch our legs and feel normal again. We are over it. But, as we get further into this sit in with fear, the more I realize it may not be the year that sucked. This is the year that was slow and weird, but has it sucked, like really sucked like some of your other years; the years when you not only sat with your fear of regret, fear of pain, fear of loss but you faced the actual thing you fear?

What is your greatest fear? Common question. My answer is usually the same. It’s weird but true: Regret. I fear that I’ll miss my opportunities. I am afraid of not making the most of my life. I fear laziness. I fear mediocrity. I fear I’ll miss my chance to make my life everything it has the potential to be.

In 2019 I faced my fear of regret. I expanded my business and opened my own gallery. That would be a peak, right? Not so fast… Because when I set out to create a bright space to display my art, my products and run my business, I got stuck in a retail rabbit hole and began free falling. So many options, like when Alice falls down the hole with everything swirling around her. My life’s top priorities got left behind as distractions. There were not enough hours in the day. I worked as much as possible just reaching out grabbing whatever I could tackle in no organized method. I spent hours traveling and working on and towards useless things. In doing that, I lost time that I will never get back. I looked into my fear-of-regret’s face, and what I recognized is that this ‘fear of lost opportunity’ is scrappy and run down. Being afraid of laziness resulted in me overcompensating to the brink of burn out.

Fear is a tricky little jack ass. Which fears are valid fears? Facing my fear taught me about valid fear versus irrational fear.  I didn’t realize that this fear of regret has two heads, two faces. That’s when the heart comes in with that list of priorities it keeps. The only opportunities I should be afraid of missing out on are the ones that involve my heart.

In August of 2018, I was about to deliver my third child... without an epidural. I was trusting an inexplicable tug I felt in my heart even though many people would say it was completely unnecessary. I had no other reason to choose this more painful way except that there was this need in my heart. I know now that this inclination was a kind of challenge. God wanted me to face the kind of raw pain I feared, the kind that I had never conceived of, much less experienced. Me and my creative mind went into some dark places during this face to face encounter with pain. I’ll never forget experiencing those last brutal contractions as if my body was digesting a knife. That disturbing analogy repeatedly emerged behind my closed eyes, until the involuntary screaming started; screaming in a way my lungs had never vibrated before, at the very moment she emerged into this world.  I completed the assignment. It was a wildly raw confrontation with pain, but I know why I had to do it. I’ll never be the same person I was before. I’ll never again waste time fearing pain and discomfort when something so amazing is on the other side of it. 

In 2019 I looked into the face of loss. The face was my sister’s. I sat helplessly while she delivered a stillborn baby. We sobbed in heartbreak not only for the person we would never get to know, but because I knew my sister’s heart was crumbling. The worst part of watching someone you love feel such tremendous loss is not being able to do a damn thing to get them through it. The core of me ached to trade places with her. I wanted to do all of the hard things she didn’t seem strong enough to take. But, I couldn’t do that. She did it herself. And, she came out the other side. She faced the loss, and now, she handles her life with the kind of faith and perseverance that only someone who has faced unmasked loss can possess. She is strong and sturdier at heart and she knows she is capable of enduring difficult things. Every blessing is that much brighter now. 

Some years we look, not at the fear, but at the face of the actual thing we fear. We take off the mask and see what it is really like. We sit, not with the fear of pain, but the actual pain itself. We get face to face with it. We feel it. We experience it. And, we get the sores and the bruises. And then, when it’s over, we get up off the floor, and we walk away from it with a different stride. We are not paralyzed by the fear and mystery of the masked version because we’ve seen what’s behind it. 

2020 is the year of fear. It is also the year of masks. The year of the unknown. We are not even sure what to be afraid of exactly. Covid might just be here to show us what happens when we sit with fear for too long. Covid is showing us what it’s like to live in fear, paralyzed and masked. Fear is restricting and limiting. Fear is boring and lonely. Fear sucks out the good and makes room for all of the bad that hasn’t even happened yet. Fear sucks. 

On creative fear, Elizabeth Gilbert wrote “Basically, your fear is like a mall cop who thinks he’s a navy SEAL: He hasn’t slept in days, he’s all hopped up on Red Bull, and he’s liable to shoot his own shadow in an absurd effort to keep everyone “safe”. 

So is this really the year that sucked? Or is it the fear that sucked? Facing actual pain and loss is what sucks, but the fear of it?…that’s just a pain in the ass and a waste of valuable time. Fear sits you on the floor when you could be living your life. Don’t take my word for it, just turn on the news. You’ll be sitting on your hard kitchen floor in no time, terrified to leave the house. 

For many families, 2020 may be like my 2019; regret, loss and sadness in the flesh. But many of us are just getting cabin fever from living too long in a year of fear. We have been sitting with fear on the god damn concrete floor and our asses are getting sore and numb. We are over it. But this long, tedious sit with fear has shown us just how it effects us.

We don’t have all of the options this year, but what we do have are choices. We can sit on the floor scared and pissed, or we can stand up and stretch our legs, and live within the life we have right now. And if pain and loss come to the door, we open it and face it and experience it and let it be what it is and change us into who we are meant to become. Not a minute sooner will we waste time, sitting on the floor waiting for a knock at the door. There is a life we are to be living even within the realm of social distancing. It may not be the life you were used to before this year, but it may be closer to the life you were meant for. 

2020 was the year I stopped trying to wear all the hats and just became me; an artist who sees color and light in everything. I am a 35 year old woman who has three amazing, healthy and very energetic young children, a loving husband who helps us all appreciate the simple ways of life; a house full of people who make me laugh and smile and also cry and yell, but I thank God for them on repeat. I am a writer who loves to use words to build and brighten others up. I am a daughter and daughter in law, a sister and a sister in law, and I am a loyal friend to a handful of people. I even have some hobbies for the first time in…ever. I work in my yard and I ride my bike, and I even paint murals on the walls of my house just because I can. I listen to music all the time and I read inspiring books (whoa that’s a new one!), and I cook for my family more often remembering that I used to really enjoy cooking before I was “too busy”. It is once again a creative and relaxing way to end the day. And, it feels good to fill up the people I love. (Ok, I’m not this positive about making dinner every night.)

We have so much to be cautious and wise about in this life, but fear is something else. God makes it pretty clear that fear is not part of His plan for us. This world may be a scary place, but faith keeps the fear out, and my heart is my favorite way to keep all that organized.

In 2020 God is still good. This year my sister had another baby, and so did our very good friends; a baby we have been praying for over the past decade! In 2020 I found focus and my own permission to be “lazy”. I found such a strong sense of purpose that I can use it to filter out useless busy work. In 2020 I realized, there actually are plenty of hours in the day to do just the right amount of things. 

This year I sat on the cold hard floor with that pathetic fear for a little while until my ass was numb and sore. So I got up because I ain’t got time for that. I’ve got dinner in the oven. 

The Noticers

Why are some of us called to create? Isn’t art just frivolous? What’s the use of art? Artists don’t serve. We don’t heal or protect or provide. Why make art?

I was taking a walk with an artist friend in college the first time I asked that question. I would continue to ask myself the same one for the next 15 years.

Creative people are designed with unique awareness.  I am an artist, a noticer. I am a looker and a listener, a thinker and a processor. I am aware of my surroundings and feelings, and I consider why I have them. I’ve had my eyes and ears and my heart open for the majority of my life, ready to be inspired. That openness allows me to see what some leave in the dark. Before the artist has even picked up her tool or instrument, she has already been chosen to see things differently. But, the vision isn’t for personal gain. This gift of sight is for the artist to use, so that others may see, too. 

PERSPECTIVE; the art of noticing.

Early this summer I began to notice hawks everywhere I looked. I swear! Hawks. Every time I looked up and sometimes straight ahead of me. They were coming up close to perch and flying lower and nearer than I had ever seen before. It scared me a little at first. Even if someone was with me, they never saw the birds before they had flown off. Once Robert and I were riding bikes and a massive brown bird flew from a tree just above his shoulder. I noticed it, but my husband, a wildlife guy, did not see it even though he was closer and much more attuned to wild animals. That’s when I got curious. Each time I saw a hawk, I was quiet and observed. I read and learned about hawks and what they represent spiritually. It was startling to learn that the hawk strongly represents something I often consider; perspective. So, then I took what I learned about the hawk, and I used it to draw and paint, to create and to share. I’ve been working with this material for several weeks. Since I began exploring the hawk through my work, I have not seen one hawk. Not one. 

Six months ago my world was wildly spinning past me, and now it’s a slower sight. It turns slow enough that I catch a glimpse of things l hadn’t noticed when it was whizzing by, like hawks coming closer. Slow enough that I have been able to read, work in my yard, have picnics with my children, cook, bake, write, and, of course, paint. I keep checking my calendar, though, because I’m certain I am forgetting something. 

When the world turned upside down this spring, I made some changes to my work life to slow the spinning before all the parts flung off. But, somehow it surprises me that the changes were effective. I feel funny not spinning. It’s a good funny. Relieving for sure. Turns out, it was that simple to slow the eff down. Me-n-my business are a living and thriving proof it can be done. I stepped out of the spinning and realized I was dizzy from trying to focus on too many things A change in perspective let me see it for myself.   

INTUITION; the art of hearing the heart

Intuition is my jam! I am a conceptual artist; an abstract expressionist. I create through intuition, therefore, I have to stay close to it. When I paint, I am connected to something I can only describe and understand to be God. I believe that He speaks to me as I paint, but I don’t hear His voice with my ears, it’s a sound in my heart. I think He finds me painting because that’s what He sent me here to do. I even believe He creates tricky situations in my life to protect me from loud distractions. He shows up with challenges for all of us in ways we can’t understand, but deep under the suffering, there is buried purpose. We have to be looking for it, though, and sometimes it’s hard as hell to see. God keeps me painting so that I can feel around in the dark. Intuition guides me to what I may miss otherwise. 

Artistic talent is often called a gift, but the truth is, it’s more like a tool. You see, the job of an artist is to use this intuition, this clarity of heart. We have to use the light like a lantern. It is not only for the artist’s benefit. The talent comes to one but, it is intended to be shared with many. Here lies the importance of trusting intuition and creating art from that deep, honest place. This is where a cycle begins turning. When one creative impulse inspires another; when one flame lights the next.

INSPIRATION; passing the light

While artists are inspired, they are also here to inspire. Artists are very good at seeing, but they also help you to see, encourage you to look. The artist inspires you to recognize what may otherwise go unnoticed. 

My art is inspired by other artists; musicians, writers, painters…. 

I always listen to music as I paint. I like singer/songwriters who create music from the ground up. The grittier the better. I want to hear heart. Lyrics lead my thoughts as I paint like a beaten path leads through a massive forrest. The light of music guides my wandering mind and lets me hear things I may have missed otherwise. 

I am inspired by writers. The way words can be arranged to sooth and flirt with your perspective. Words can be put together in such a way that you see and hear ordinary, unpleasant things in a warm and comfy light. 

Earlier this year I read The Alchemist. I couldn’t wait to live my life with the perspective I had gained from this book. The spirit this timeless story carries elevated me through this spring. That perspective inspired me to look at the challenge at hand as another step down my path. Each test is another opportunity to get closer to the light. 

“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.” 

- Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

  I am now reading Untamed by Glennon Doyle. I had to put it down after a chapter called “Know”. I put it down because I was stunned and giddy with inspiration. I needed to explore something that had been swimming around in my deep, quiet intuition.

Her words let me know that other people experience what I tap into as I paint, but they get to it differently. She taught herself to find “the knowing” by sitting quietly in her closet where she was still enough to hear and feel. She describes dropping within herself into a deep “silent chamber” where she discovers “liquid gold”. 

“What I have learned (even though I am afraid to say it) is that God lives in this deepness inside me. When I recognize God’s presence and guidance, God celebrates by flooding me with warm liquid gold.”

-Glennon Doyle, Untamed

In my words, I have described that same deep understanding as intuition; the light. Her analogy of warmth is what connected me to the sensation. I know that warmth. It is a feeling of awareness; an understanding of yourself in the big picture; it’s purpose. And, it is mystical. Her words inspired me to share my own. When she acknowledged that it felt weird to say that out loud, she made me do it, too. Her words guided me to say out loud what I had not even let myself acknowledge. She led me to say what I may not have otherwise said. And, here it is: 

These hawks, I believe they are messengers. They were sent to startle me (us) awake. To open my eyes and ears, and get closer to something that intimidates me. They came to inspire. They came to show me the power of perspective. They are telling me to get closer to the light; ushering me to fly into it, unafraid. 

Today, as I was painting, the words of a song inspired me to think about those birds again, but this time, I felt that deep down tug of intuition, that guide, needing me to hear this:

“And I know, you're afraid of falling flat

And I know, those walls are up against your back

And I know, there are those who'd see ya crack

But I know that you're stronger than that”

                                                              - Bahamas “Stronger Than That”

This guide was yanking me down a path. The hawks had set me on a trail to discover something, but this was a different direction. So I leaned a little, and I walked it… I scribbled down in my sketchbook a note that says: 

“The hawk isn’t afraid of falling to the ground. He flies as he was made to fly, but he comes down to rest and to observe. When he comes down, he isn’t falling; he is building strength and focusing. He doesn’t fly ’til he falls. The hawk is stronger than that.”  

-me

This summer the hawk came to me repeatedly until I acknowledged him. In noticing these hawks, I became inspired to look carefully at every scenario, to be wise, to be strong, intentional and intuitive, rather than complicated and overworked. The hawk uses his perspective and intuition to tell him when to fly and when to perch. It may seem like calculated patience, but an animal is nothing but simple intuition. He is acting instinctively saving his energy for the opportunities that deliver. He is not flying constantly either, nor does he busy himself by running around on foot all damn day. The hawk has wings that allow him to soar in a light filled sky. He is a noticer. He is a visionary.  He is inspired by his unique perspective and fueled by his intuition. He is an artist, a musician, a writer.

I pause at that last paragraph to make a note in my sketchbook. It’s a painting title I may use. I jot down: “Fly in the Light”. Just as I handwrite those words, thunder booms loudly, without any rain for introduction.  The connection is lyrical. That could have been a kick drum. It was like all these crazy world events, deep reflections, books, songs and bizarre hawk sightings, all just came together. It all just caught a beat, and with that thunderous drum sound, a song fell in sync. Life and art in harmony. It’s all connected.

I look out my studio window from my desk. It’s raining now. A slow but persistent turtle has crawled from a bush and is crossing the driveway. She must be heading for a stronger shelter from the storm. At this particular moment, I feel a stirring sensation that this turtle is another animal coming to me. She wants me to know something, learn something…write something. I immediately google, “turtle spirit animal”. I can’t help myself. I’m addicting to knowing stuff like this now. I believe in it, too. 

I learn that “The turtle totem wisdom teaches us about walking our path in peace and sticking to it with determination and serenity.”  The turtle encourages us to take a break in our “busy lives and look around or within….”. https://www.spiritanimal.info/turtle-spirit-animal/

Path, Busy, Look, Within: These are all important words in this essay. That little tortoise just came by with a wink and a fist pump…. ’n off she went. I am inspired to stay on my path, this new, more peaceful one. Because that’s where I really began to notice things.

As an artist, I have found myself moved by many things, but the inspiration I never saw coming was a bird of prey with no color or significant meaning to me otherwise. However, my calling as an artist is to notice and work with everything I am given, to obey every tug in my heart and every sense of inspiration whether I hear it, see it or feel it.  Each time I trust, each time I surrender with obedience to 'the tugs’, each time I’m willing to seem like the town crazy lady accepting messages from spirit animals, I find that I have been tested. The reward for completing each faithful test has been a great one. It is not an answered prayer or a material blessing. It is the most rewarding sensation yet; fulfillment. It is a warm glowy light flooding my bones letting me know I am fulfilling my life’s very purpose. I am called to create, to fly in the light, painting what I feel, and writing what I know.

As it turns out, we, the artists, the noticers, we are here to serve, to heal, to protect. We do provide. Whether the light glows or glares, we bear the brightness. When we paint through pain, and sing in sorrow, we trap truth and honor it. We make lanterns out of the light we find. The light shifts perspectives, heals hurt and hate, opens eyes. Art serves sensation to solid rock souls and protects hearts from callusing. When hope burns out, we sense a flicker. We provide the light, and we pass it.

I have woken up in the middle of the night. My husband is away for work, and I am alone in the dark, awake with my eyes closed. In the deep, silent pit of me, I feel that wordless voice answer my question drawing me to a deeper conclusion:

You cannot hide the light you have noticed. That, is why you make art.

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:14-16

The "Memory" Pattern

wearing the “Memory” scarf

A little background behind my new pattern and what it represents. Y’all know I can’t just paint pretty colors and call it a day… everything I create has its purpose.

I’ve been dabbling in textile designs over the past year- easing myself into this field. I am still figuring out how to take on textiles in my own way; pairing a rhythmic style of painting with the same depth and purpose I express in my art. I’ve enjoyed working on patterns. Creating for pattern is a new way to paint. I’m playing with color combos, scales and shapes. They’re on papers, scrap canvases and many walls in my house. Of all the patterns I’ve made so far, I have not yet loved one like I love “Memory”. When I painted this design, I was moved by the color combinations and sensed a concept in those colors. The mix was moving and striking but soft, too.  I titled it “Memory”. 

Time has a way of softening a memory; it pales the harshness. Time can make a memory more pleasant than the full reality that it was. Having a newborn is hard, exhausting and stressful at times, but the memory of your newborn baby is mostly nostalgic, soft and sweet. 

“Memory” was painted before we knew what pivotal experiences were in store for us. I find myself hopeful that in time, the memory of spring of 2020 will be a moving and striking one, but soft at the same time. I hope to find myself looking back with nostalgia on the days when we changed gears and did more of the good stuff. We listened to a lot of music. We had margaritas on the porch. We got more rest. We went crabbing and fishing. We took many walks and bike rides, and I started to enjoy cooking  again  We came up with 150 nicknames for “Josephine”. My children would watch me paint, and I’d talk to them about how I make art. I hope I won’t clearly remember the vibrant tantrums, and quick tempers, the fits and the fights and the looming fear of the uncertainty. I have a feeling it will be memorialized as that spring when we got to know what really matters in our hearts, how we want to spend our time. It will be the spring we when we got to know our babies as the little people they were becoming. That spring that was a striking challenge, but as a memory it will be nostalgic, soft and sweet.

This pattern, “Memory”, is more than a mix of nice colors around your neck. It represents the forgiveness of time. 

(currently “Memory” is available as a scarf and a zipper bag which can purchased here. It has plans though! Stay tuned)

Respect the Process

So many emotions are stirred up during the process of creating a single painting. You’d think being a painter would be such relaxing and mellow career. Sometimes it is…. I suppose. But, each and every painting I complete sends me through the ringer. It is a cycle of emotions. It’s occurred to me that the process is a lot like birthing, nurturing and raising a little person. Ridiculously trying, but absolutely rewarding at the end of the day.  

When I start a painting, it’s exciting and new, and then, I get tired and confused. I have high moments of encouragement and accomplishment only to follow with a new challenge to resolve. Every painting is like a therapy session with myself. Every painting challenges me to get out of my own head and think with my heart. My heart doesn’t know the principles and elements of design or how to mix color, so I have to revisit my head throughout the process, careful not to stay there too long, for the critics in my head are very mean…Back to the heart where forgiveness and openness live. Can you see how it is an internally exhausting practice? And if you’re a parent, it may sound all too familiar. 

Being a mom is a lot like being an artist. That must be why motherhood has inspired my art more than anything else ever has. Both roles involve creating something totally new. Both take heart and soul and guts….so much guts…boldness and reliance on faith and trust. Both roles require a tricky combination of head and heart, and will lead you to question everything about yourself and even push you to a tearful breaking point before it’s all said and done. The middle stage of a painting is a nurturing experience. It’s a delicate process of preserving what you have already accomplished while also building on new layers and developments, careful not to disturb what is meant to be; careful not to listen to the critic in the head (and ears).

Do you ever feel like it’s all suppose to be easier? Isn’t there a point when we have all this figured out, and maybe we just get to coast for a bit? We're always like “I just gotta get through this week, and everything will be better.” But the next week comes with new things to tackle and overcome. The thing is, the hard stuff is hard for a reason. The challenges we work and struggle to overcome are not useless. They come with a result of one kind or another. 

This series of paintings is about building on firm foundations. My own most solid foundation came from my dad. He really drove this one home…My sister and I even laugh about how often he told us this, but then again, here I am living it out every day and sharing this with you, too, so it looks like he knew a little something about repetition. His big, main life lesson was honesty; the importance of being honest with yourself.

Flash-forward 25 years, and my big, main thing with my own children is respect. Respect is both a noun and verb. You can have it, and you can do it, and so there is no excuse for it not to exist in some form.

Parenting puts us through the ringer. I get tired. I get confused. I have high moments of encouragement and accomplishment only to follow with a new challenge to resolve. Every day is like a therapy session with myself. Every day challenges me to get out of my own head and think with my heart. In the end I return to foundations; the ones my Daddy gave me, to be honest with myself, and the ones I feel that God gave me; respect others and myself. Returning to these foundations is what helps me to parent with my heart and not my head which too often tells me what I “ought” to do.

Just as we selectively choose elements to focus and build on when creating art, we can focus on key elements to help us raise our young children, even the fiery ones. By the third child, I am a more chill mom than I was with my first, but that is still not that chill. I have to stay on my own ass reminding myself not to dwell on the little things…some things are just not worth the battle, and in the end, they don’t matter. I also have an old fashioned parenting style that I am learning to mix with a little contemporary “you do you, kid”. Instead of focusing on all the ‘shoulds’ of the old ways, I am working to focus on building the foundations that really count, that always have and always will, regardless of time period and parenting style. I’m focused on raising them to always remember one really important thing. My repeating words may just be background noise to them now, but I trust that one day, they will actually find themselves applying it. Maybe even teaching their own children the same thing. Hell, maybe they’ll even be writing about it too!

My base coat in parenting is respect. Everybody deserves respect. Remembering to ‘have respect for yourself’ is sometimes as difficult as ‘being honest with yourself’, but both are important to understand as early as possible, and you’re never too old to learn, either. Respect is a character trait they can forever count on and return to. Even when life puts us through the ringer, when we find ourselves in that whirlwind cycle of emotions and worries, that foundation is always there. It’s a structure you can come home to every time.

To my children,

Here it is in writing for you to always know and keep:

Respect others, and respect yourself.  Respect that everyone is different because that was God’s plan. Respect yourself by not letting anyone tell you who you should be or how you should live your life. Respect yourself by never letting anyone belittle you or make you feel inadequate and do the same for others. Respecting yourself by not allowing anyone to take advantage of you; have a backbone and keep boundaries. Know when and how to respectfully speak up for yourself. Respect yourself by doing your best; aim for results that make you proud. Respect yourself by knowing what makes you happy and what does not. This is your one and only life and no one else’s. You best respect it. 

Through Thick & Thin

This essay has been idly saved on my computer for a month. I wrote this in November. Today is December 28th. I did not post the original version last month because I was afraid. But with a new year around the bend, I decided once again not to let fear of humility stop be from being transparent and honest in order to give others a sense of support and encouragement. We all go through thin times in all areas of life, not just in business. This is intended to be applied to anyone on anything. So, to keep this in real-time,I’ve added my current understandings throughout the essay. The indented paragraphs are a way of showing you my growth through hardship. This post is about the importance of faith and heart through thick and through the hard, thin times. 

(Novemeber 2019) Yesterday I painted while listening to a podcast called The Business Boutique with Christy Wright. Usually I work with music on, but I’m really into this podcast right now and for good reason. I’ve been in need of clarity.

When I completed the two paintings I was working on while I was listening to this podcast, I named them “Through Thick and Thin I & II”. The titles are in reference to what I was feeling as I painted and what I was working through by listening to this podcast. 

While working from thin layers of paint to thick cushiony coats made by my palette knife, I began to think about going through thick and thin times. Right now, I am pushing my heart to stay faithful through a unfamiliar and uncertain time in my business; a thin time. When I say “thin” I mean the times when we struggle, and “thick” as the times when we feel comfortable. It occurred to me that what we don’t often hear people sharing about are their thin times while they experience their thin times. We usually wait until things are all plushy thick to share about our challenging past. We hear and read success stories told in the past tense and in a specific tone. I totally write this way, too. It’s the “I grew from this, and you can, too” kinda talk.  And, while it is really inspiring to hear those stories knowing the person came out good and well in the end, I wondered, what would it mean to hear someone talk about tough times while they experienced them? With that said, we don’t get inspired hearing others complain and sulk. No, this would need to still be a hopeful and inspiring approach. What would it be like to read another’s vulnerable hopefulness without already knowing everything turns out for them? Would it encourage other people to invest more in their own heartfelt hopes if they knew other people, even the bold ones, feel those nervous feelings, too?

This year I’ve had a lot of kind well-wishers congratulating me on my “success", and each time, I am repeatedly left with a blank stare….because I did not realize I’d achieved success. As far as I can tell, I haven’t gotten to that part yet. I haven’t seen the thick end. I don’t even know how and when to use the word “successful” in regards to myself. My progress has been slow and steady…one heart-driven step at a time in the direction toward my goals. And my goals still feel far away.  

While “successful” is an objective term and one I don’t yet feel fits me, I now recognize something in that last paragraph that I hadn’t noticed one month ago when I wrote it. I have actually been successfully doing one thing over my 12 years as a full time artist; growing. While success to some is a result, success can also be broken down into little successful baby steps. With every child I’ve made changes to adapt to my life as a self employed mama. And, only 4 years ago I was still running this show all alone from my tiny home studio which had no heat or air, painting under a very offensive florescent light. 4 years ago!! That’s not that long. Boy have things changed in only 4 years. But, they did not change over night. It was a series of successfully taking bold but nerve-wracking steps. Fear or no fear; I took the steps. Today I paint in my renovated home studio, and I own a gallery, and I employ and work with 5 bad ass ladies. All that's not to say I’ve achieved success, but it is to say I have grown. It says that I am capable of doing things that scare me, things that make me uncomfortable. 

(Back to November me:)  I am struggling with and learning about how to run this new business I have created, and I am telling you that I am currently in a thin place as we speak. And, later, down the road a little, we will see the outcome of my latest ventures. While of course I hope it leads to some kind of payoff, I know that it could lead to something I have not expected or planned for. 

Whether it leads to financial success or not, it will lead me somewhere and that means I am still making progress. I am continuing to grow. And that recognition lets me be free of that “fear of failure” everyone talks about because even when we think we’ve failed we still gain something.

As a part of my calling to be a bright spot, I want to tell people when things are tough because that’s the truth.  I can’t inspire others by only showing them the pretty parts, the outcomes worth bragging on.  It is not authentic to lead others to believe it’s all just peaches and cream. The truth is we have to serve ourselves the thin, watery grits before we get to the rich, hearty meals. We have to show God that we trust the plans He has placed in our hearts and that we are willing to make sacrifices and work our asses off to fulfill them. Yes I just cussed and said God in the same sentence…that’s just me….I’ve got this gritty faith. 

Mignon Francois was the guest on that particular episode of Business Boutique I was painting to yesterday. Her story is remarkable. She was truly scraping the bottom of the thin times when she chose to put faith out front. She found that when she was willing to listen to God and follow His instructions with no questions, God was handing her His directions which led her to save her family from poverty and go on to create a very successful bakery biz, The Cupcake Collection. Her walk through faith in business is what struck me. Because I have also given in to that blind trust. 

You’re probably hoping I’ll spell out exactly what I’m struggling with in my business. Well, where do I start? It’s about money, mom guilt, exhaustion, burnout…. It’s having high hopes and big plans, but not enough time or money to make it happen as fast as I’d like it to. In 2019 I put so much trust and invested so much money and time in what I felt in my heart. I’ve also worked my ass off this year. And now, as I await the holiday season, I am left wondering if it will all have been worth it; if people will understand and support this unique business model. I’m actually starting to question everything I have been so focused on and excited about and sure of. My anxiety about the future has hit me hard lately. A few nights ago, after I put the children to bed, I found myself crying my eyeballs out at the kitchen counter completely overwhelmed and insecure. Robert, who has put total trust in my vision, pieced me back together and reminded me that we work from the ground up. This year has been hard. It’s been thin. But, I won’t lose my focus. I won’t lose my trust in a heartfelt vision. I have the mentality that if someone else has done it, then so the hell can I. So I keep working and pushing and digging deeper than I ever have before. Because I believe that what it comes down to is our willingness to get uncomfortable. That willingness shows God that we trust His purpose for our life, and we are willing to fulfill it.

I’m so certain God sent Mignon’s words directly into my ears yesterday…literally right into my lil EarPods. I could not ignore her words or mishear them. She verified that my hard work and efforts are not the product of naive hopefulness. I felt reassured knowing that the thick won’t come without the thin. The thin times are not comfortable, and they are not pretty. With bags under my eyes and stress pimples on my face, I can tell you that real hard work is not glamorous or polished. Great achievements come with some bitchin’ blisters. The thing is, the blisters prove you showed up to work, but they don’t guarantee achievement. Just cuz you work hard for something doesn’t mean you will be successful. Faith and heart have to be the real muscle. Faith and heart start you off with a purposeful vision, and faith and heart keep you on track moving towards the vision especially when times get thin. If I throw my shovel down now, when the dirt gets hard and my hands start hurting, I’ll show God that I’m not willing to be get uncomfortable in order to get to the good stuff; that I’m too scared of feeling the thin times; that I don’t trust Him to carry me to His thick rich blessings. 

I am beaming with pride when I look at my gallery. I created the space that I imagined, like nothing I’ve ever known of before, but that doesn’t mean that things are peaches and cream. It’s more like watery grits right now. But, despite my nerves, I stand reminded by Christy and Mignon that God does not want me to fail, but He does want to see me show up ready to work. He gave me these high hopes and thick, cushy goals.  He planted them deep in my heart. What’s in our hearts is a part of His plan- not ours. So who would we be to ignore that? He wants to see how we will work with the gifts and visions He placed in us. Just like Beyonce and Jeff Bezos and Tory Burch, He gave me two hands, too…. and a heart and a vision…and a hell of a work ethic. But then, I also have this gritty faith… the kind that dares me to see what happens if I fully trust those tugs in my heart. This gritty faith dares me to walk myself into the thin because I know that whatever happens will fit into the big picture. Even the drive to write this essay and share my vulnerabilities and fear with you has a purpose. Are these words serving you like Christy’s and Mignon’s  served me? I can only hope so. Because one thing that Mignon Francois said that has stuck with me is that we can’t acquire a lesson on faith and then leave it on the side of the road to be abandoned and wasted. I loved hearing her say that because it gave purpose to me sharing the words I write. It gave purpose to everything I have done in this last hard, thin year. 

How will the story turn out? We don’t know, yet. You don’t get to hear how it turns out yet because I don’t know the result yet either. You only know that I’m on the thin end. I’ve invested a great deal… not only my money, but my time, my energy and my sanity, and that last one might be lost for good. It’s made me humble and grateful for every single sale of To Be a Line and every single visitor who strolls through Sarah Otts Gallery. All this is to say that everything I do is to fulfill my heart which tells me to be a bright spot, to do what I love and share it, too. Times are thin now, but I know there’s purpose through thick and through thin.

For Christmas this year, I gave my 8 year old daughter a journal with a pretty little graphic cover that says “Beautiful girl, you can do hard things.” Because I’ve decided, what holds us back, what we’re actually afraid of, isn’t failure, we are afraid of doing hard things and feeling thin times. Have courage in knowing that the God of Hope wants to carry us through it all.

Listen to Christy Wright’s Business Boutique 

Episode 86. “Be More Confident By Believing in Yourself”

Featuring the oh so inspiring Mignon Francois, The Cupcake Collection.

Mini Post: Generations by Design

Mini posts: for when I have a little something to say.

The back of my book, To Be a Line, shows you the reason I wrote this book: the next generation. 💓💓💓

I think a lot about the irony on social media; the things it may do for and against this next generation. I work to use social media as positively as possible. When opening up to the entire world is as easy as turning the camera around and tapping a button called “SHARE”, users are sharing more than we were ever comfortable sharing before- we are becoming comfortable with vulnerability. I used to worry that my children’s gen was totally screwed. By the time they are fully raised within this culture, I worried we would be looking at a whole world of narcissists, but I’m starting to think about that differently.... as long as people keep opening up and sharing. 

With my book and posts, I hope to keep the conversation ongoing about what makes me ME and what makes you YOU in order to give us more US. .

This book was written for the next generation; a group of people who might end up being more willing to accept who they are (and God willing, who others are) than my generation and certainly gens before that because of their ability to connect with people all around the world. This new technology driven existence we live in has been painted as a beast, but never before have we been able to connect like this, and connection let’s us feel confident about who we are. Making connections let’s us feel like the good kind of different.

“What makes you different sets you apart. It’s what makes you special. It’s what makes your mark. You are you by design. Trust in your heart and grow like a line.”

Footloose and Fancy Free At Any Age

This may come as a shock to some, but I don’t like being told what to do and how to do it. Bah! Call me naive, but I’d like to think I can be footloose and fancy free with my own life. 

I guess I write this stuff to y’all because I worry that lots of people forget to think for themselves and make a life that they truly enjoy. I know I am not the only one because “purpose” and “living my best life” are quite the buzz words right now. I am always making points to remind others that this one span of time we spend on Earth is actually quite a short ride in the grand spectrum. 

In celebrating my mom turning 60 this month (because she likes her birthday to last all month), she kept bringing up how grateful she is to still be here with us at 60. Without even having any health scares of her own (gratefully!), she has still witnessed her share. And, in a culture when everyone sulks over and fights the aging process, I was refreshed by her perspective. We need to celebrate and fulfill each and every opportunity we have while we are here, and to me, that means finding true fulfillment in how we spend our days. I believe that’s why we are here in the first place! 

What could you do with this life you got if not for fear? What would you do if you didn’t worry? What would make you happy? Don’t say money! Money doesn’t count.

I heard a podcast recently in which a woman who was recently empty nested was discussing the blanket of sadness that some mothers experience without children at home to take care of. She had romanticized having a family and caring for her children all her life up to that point, and she felt uncertain of what came next. Feeling that portion of her life come to a close, she suddenly realized she had another half a lifetime in front of her. For some that is overwhelming, but that observation made me excited! 

What I am about to say could sound irresponsible to those financy people out there, Lord knows I’m not one of them… 

But what would you do if you weren’t so hung up on money? I am personally terrified of money.  And obviously the fear of losing it stops a lot of us from chasing out our ideal life. What if we erased money from the picture we paint of our happiest life?

Not long ago, I determined that there is just no way my daily work is about making money so I can buy shit. I mean… think about it. Most people only work to make money so they can buy cool stuff and be happy…well also to eat and live under shelter, too. We do need money to survive. I am fortunate to have a career which I love, but even I had to question; what’s the point of this? 

There is a lot of talk out there about finding a purpose in order to create a truly fulfilling life. This week I was reminded of the simplest and truest answer to the purpose question: our purpose is to serve God and love others. Always. End of story. 

First and foremost that’s all it takes to live a fulfilling life. Serve God and love others is the first and the last step every time. 

I am learning to not have fear in the unknown i.e. anxiety about the future and money. I am learning to stay close to God. I am learning that having complete faith by leaning on His guidance in all ways is leading me to where I need to be, to do the work He needs me to do. 

The first time I absolutely trusted God fully, He told me to deliver my baby with no medication. That seems irrelevant, but in that way He showed me how strong I was even through fear and pain (those words feel understated). I believe that was my intro to His “trust me and have no fear” policy. Then I continued to listen to my heart suggesting me to find a way to share with others a message. It was a message that felt like offering others a spoonful of hope. I worked hard and did a lot of self searching, painting and writing to understand what exactly that message was, and in the process I wrote a book. As I continued to explore my heart through my work as an artist and a writer, I felt the words “bright spot” continually emerge. As my work is a visual bright spot, my book and blog essays are written bright spots too. I am creating work that represents a dosage of hope. And, I am now embarking on another new and unknown journey in order to spread what has been placed on my heart, to encourage brightness in others. 

Let my art, my words and the “Be a Bright Spot” brand remind you to be focused on the right things, to consider your time here on Earth in the grand spectrum, to reflect on how your words and actions effect those around you. “Be a Bright Spot” is a spoonful of hope that I intend to scatter out into a world that tends to be dull with the dread and fear of growing old. A whole world of people who are afraid of using the time on Earth as He intended. You don’t have to become a nun to live a life for God. Hello?!?! (I’m waving my hand and laughing because I am no saint!) Having faith is to be footloose and fancy free of that kind of fear. Find joy in simplicity. Continually return to your heart for suggestions on what to do next. And, bravely trust the suggestions you find in there. Discover what it feels like to live with purpose and to have the brightest time of your life. 

what is BE A BRIGHT SPOT ?

I want y’all to know, I am not claiming to be cheery at all times. Of course, I have days that are darker than others, and I need the reminder to look at what is right and good around me. But, I also recognize that there are folks out there who, no matter what, are going to look outward with a gloomy, cloudy perspective; the complainers, the whiners, gossipers, the people looking to pull you down with them cuz misery loves company. And, when you spend time with their dullness, it doesn’t make you feel good. It makes you feel depressed and helpless. It makes you shrink. It makes you dim your light.

Just like my abstract art, ‘Be a Bright Spot’ is up for your own interpretation. It can simply be a reminder to be hopeful and kind when at all possible. It can be an affirmation to be true to yourself; to be the most real version of you. It can be a nudge to notice the goodness in your life even when you are being slapped in the face with pain, sadness and discontentment. ‘Be a Bright Spot’ can be a reminder that real life is NOT about perfection. ‘Be a Bright Spot’ is not a charge to walk around with a stupid, fake smile on your face. It’s a wake up call to get real. It’s about enjoying your days and being grateful for who you are and what you have. It’s realizing that we live in a perpetual world of comparison and discrimination, mean girls and bullies (at all ages), and godforsaken mass shootings. There is plenty of dullness out there which you do not have to look for to notice. But, it is ironically hard sometimes to notice the brightness. So go ahead… Be a Bright Spot. It won’t do you any harm, but it may do someone else a lot of good.

Soft to a Point

All my life I have been told that I was soft spoken. In the 7th grade I was humiliated in class by a teacher for not speaking loud enough. I was shy and quiet ….until I wasn’t. There came a point when I realized shy was no longer working for me. So I was like, “Efff being shy.” Well, I didn’t actually say that in the 7th grade. No way. Not only quiet, I was naive and a rule-follower. I would never have said  THE  F-word, but now that I’m a grown adult, I say that when I have reached a certain point; “Fuck it.” Here’s the deal... I know that’s a pretty sharp tone right off the bat, and you’re expecting some softer language from me, but that’s what I’m here to discuss. The real honest truth can seem surprisingly sharp when you are expected to be soft. 

My Dad taught me that “first you have to be honest with yourself before you can be honest with anyone else.”. He was always finding a way to inject that lesson into all kinds of circumstances. I have grown up with that foundation, and in many ways it has made me who I am. It is the same advice I give to my own children. It is the same message that comes across in my children’s book, and it’s essentially what I am discussing in all of my work, but most definitely in my recent series of art informally known as the “Efff It” series of 2019.

The first title for this series, “Tending the Garden", was in reference to caring for one’s sense of purpose, but the truth is, this artwork was also tangled up with some strong emotions. Painting always lets me be honest with myself in a raw kind of way. While painting this series of work I realized something. I was being soft and malleable by going along with someone else’s way. By being an agreeable rule-follower, I was being hesitant, unwilling to be brave and bold. The thing is, I’ve been working hard to pave my own path. Did I forget that applies in my work too? Was I afraid to find my own way? Was I afraid to be honest with myself?

It’s really easy to get stuck in a train of thought or a rhythm of how things are done without realizing that it’s not working for you. Often times we take the beaten path because it’s soft and smooth, but that is not the only route. There is no right or wrong way to go about your life…within moral and healthy reason. What I am saying is, we can only go with flow for so long until we realize it’s not working….we can be soft, but only to a point. 

Originally, I gave the series that smooth poetic name- I guess because I thought that was what you’d want me to say. “Tending the Garden” is pretty and relevant, but then it lacked the powerful and honest emotion that this art was carrying. I was not shy about letting you know that I really wanted to name the series, “Fuck It”. I was venting that day when I posted those strong words on Instagram. I had finally realized that I had been through a year of learning what it takes to truly find my own path and trust my own heart. It was not an easy year either, but I grew in ways I didn’t know I was capable of. So, why had I stopped short of bravely trusting my heart in this one area? That sharp tone was my way of saying “I am ready to do this my way.” I suppose that was the first step to opening my own gallery, but all I knew at that point was- I was about to change things up. 

I was uncertain of what my Instagram audience would think of me when I busted out loud and proud with the F word in that post. What was I getting myself into?  Who did I think I was talking like that? These are the people who read my posts about soft tender things, like my heart and God. It seemed like a contradiction, but all I knew is that I wanted to be totally truthful and these honest emotions, sharp as they were, seemed to step up and take over. Some people were probably offended by my choice of words. Many were probably taken back. But, then, maybe some found it to be refreshing and real. Maybe I’m not the only one who is relieved when someone doesn’t censor themselves so much. I like to hear people speak genuinely and passionately even when it comes across as shocking …sharp. I admire someone who owns the honest truth of themselves, no apologies and a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. Because isn’t that the truth? You can’t please everyone so you might as well be real. Take it, or leave it. Plus, I can always tell when someone is holding back those explosive words for the sake of not offending anyone, and I just want to be like, “Go ahead- say what you need to say!”. Those words are loaded with emotion, and sometimes they hold everything you need to express in four little letters. 

Many people responded to my “Fuck It” post, but not the way I anticipated. I waited for my following to drop and to get a finger-shaking talking-to by at least one holier than Thou individual. But, that did not happen. Maybe I was being paranoid, and that’s nothing new. What I got was a whole lot of reenforcement. Turns out, there are other people like me thinking, “Go ahead- say what you need to say!”.

You know those times when you felt too modest to be honest, and then, when someone else comes out with the same thing- you’re like: “Oh ma’ gah! ME TOO!!! I thought it was just me!?” And then you feel relieved that you aren’t the only one with that thought. Being honest with yourself is an essential step, but it’s the easiest one, too. Finding the confidence to let others know about your sharpest edge is another story, especially when the expectation is to be soft. Not only was it hard for me to be honest with myself in this case, it was even harder for me to be a level of real that would surprise some, but when I did it anyway, it showed me something. Speaking the honest truth let’s another modest and soft-spoken person say, “OMG me too!”. Being honest with yourself is great, but the good stuff is letting your outward honesty strike up another person’s courage to be honest, too. 

See, I have a strict policy for the way I represent myself on social media. My policy comes down to being completely and totally real….as real as possible, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to be loud and proud and real.  It’s actually extremely uncomfortable at times. Because this is about being totally honest, I’ll tell you that my biggest worry with social media is that I’ll be mistaken as vain. Probably has something to do with the whole talking at myself in my phone screen routine. Or, the pretending I am talking to an audience bit, when I’m actually looking at my own face. Or, maybe it’s taking selfies and photos of myself on a timer. That younger generation has this shit down to a science with no complex issues, but that’s a discussion for another day. I do all these things, and it’s awkward AF, and if you do this stuff too, I’d find it hard to believe if it doesn’t make you self conscious. But, even though it’s uncomfortable, and I risk seeming vain, I do it anyway, so that I can be relatable and stay connected with the people who are interested. I share my art and my words to be an encourager, a bright spot, to be the voice that speaks out so that you can be the one to say “OMG me too!”. 

There is such a thing as going too far; revealing too much; being too real. I was positive I was dancing on the line with that F bomb dropping vent. So, you may have watched as I tinkered back and forth unsure of whether I felt comfortable using this sharper voice with my entire audience. I seem to save that voice for my closest peeps- the voice sprinkled with words fit for a sailor, when I totally let loose everything thats buggin’ me. It was kind of a bratty WHINE. It was, and the soft-spoken 7th grader, that in part I still am, is kind of mortified, but the determinate hard candy shell of me says: I want to be bold and brave and real as hell, even if it makes them (and me) uncomfortable because I want to make a statement in doing so. So, that’s what I did because I’d rather be considered “shockingly sharp but honest” than “perfectly expected but dull”.

Here is where the irony comes in. Here’s why I am writing this piece about having an odd combination of conflicting characteristics. Because when I’m being honest with myself, I realize that everything I write is actually for my children. And now you might be sitting there going…. “Wait. You’re saying kids should cuss and rant on social media??” I know- I’m jumping around here, so before you think I am being totally cray, stick with me for a second. No- I’m not encouraging kids to use adult language or to over vocalize their discontentment on Insta. I am reminding you to be and say the truth, and the truth is:  real life, the real honest version, is full of contradictions.  Real life contradicts our expectations. It’s feeling darkness and knowing their is light. It’s being quiet and subtle inside but bold and colorful outside. It’s expecting soft but getting sharp. I want my children to know these things coexist.  I want them to grow up knowing that everything about them was perfectly designed with intention, even when it feels like they are a mess of contradictions. 

My most honest words come out when I am writing to my first audience: Lelia. My first baby was the reason I began writing like this in the first place. She was the bright spot in my life that inspired me to look inward, and find out who I honestly was. In writing to her, I found the courage to come out and say the truth. I started with a hand written journal for my 18 month old first born as a keep-sake for her and our children to come so that when they became confused adults one day, they could read my words and know that I, too, struggled and prayed my way through life. I wanted my adult children to see that I was a work in progress, that I was humble and scared but faithful. When I think about writing to my children, I find the courage to be honest. 

I’m laughing right now thinking about my little babies as grown adults reading this piece of writing, and, first, being totally shocked because I do not let them hear me say cuss words. But then also, they will see that at 34, I was still remembering my dad’s advice, and challenging myself to be honest. And, when they read all that I’ve written within this last year, they will realize that for an entire year I embraced every single inclination I felt in my heart, regardless of my fear and other’s concerning looks. They will see that I was always working to strengthen my faith and build confidence in who I am and who I was created to be, and that as a 34 year old I was still learning to accept the unique handful of character traits that make me me. I want them to see that it’s ok if you make some folks shocked and uncomfortable when you are as honest with them as you are with yourself. It’s ok if you’re not the person you are expected to be. Not only is it okay to be you, it is essential- because you are you by design. You were perfectly created to have even the most unlikely and peculiar concoction of characteristics that you find yourself to be; dark and light, quiet but bold, sharp yet soft. To be honest with yourself is to accept who God designed you to be. To be honest with others is to present the person you were designed to be. But, to be a bright spot is to be so bold in your truth that you inspire others to be all that they are and nothing they are not. If you think of someone who’s been a bright spot in your life, my guess is they are as honest with you as they are with themselves, and because of that, they make you feel pretty cute in your own weird ways. 

Thank you for that ageless advice, Daddy. 

Be beautifully bold and bright in your ways.

Trust in your heart and value your days.

Be all that you are and nothing you’re not.

Be color. Be light.

Be a bright spot. 

-Sarah Otts

Mini Post: CLEAN LIVING

“Clean Living” 48x60 oil on canvas

Mini posts: for when I have a little something to say.

This is the background story for this particular painting and the thought process behind the title.

The clean living movement; it’s making quite a splash! The way I see it, it’s a direction we had to move towards because humanity as a whole has grown to live so far from our natural intention that we had no where to go but back where we came from. Our modern ways are sickening us, and sadly “healthy” living doesn’t cut it anymore. We are learning to be informed and knowledgeable, but it’s freaking exhausting and beyond overwhelming when you really get into the guts of the matter. We also can’t live in fear and paranoia so you truly have to choose which clean efforts to focus on. Which ones effect you the most?...And then add in more efforts as you learn and adapt.

Beyond the food, products, meds and so on that pertain to clean living, I got to thinking about this topic as it relates to my new series Drawing the Light. What does it mean to live with a clean perspective, free of toxic influences and even toxic people? To me that means living a life with purpose and heartfelt authenticity.

This painting was made with those thoughts swirling in my head. The shapes come at you from the dark and saturated confusing state that was the under painting. The final result, after layer upon layer, is a painting made up of natural shapes, marks and forms + contrasting tones, hues and values. A vibrant and lively representation of what it means to me to ‘live clean’; to live free of wrongful intentions; to bring the good things nature intended for us out of the dark brush and into the forefront where there is light.

Drawing the Light

Dark Before Light, 48x48 oil on canvas

Dark and light; they are frequently used metaphors. It’s the bad versus the good, the hidden and the exposed, pain and relief, sadness and joy. The list goes on. God separated dark from light. These two circumstances are clearly defined as opposites, yet one cannot be understood without knowing the other. My own darkness came in the form of restless anxiety. The light finally returned to me through painting and led me to a new series of work and some lingering questions.  Without our challenges, would our rewards be as great? Without darkness, would there be light?

Watch any musician’s documentary, and you’ll find an expressive person who has tapped into some deeply personal emotions, releasing them through his or her art. But, more often than not, the hardest part for that artist was not the actual work. The hard part was shining the light on what feels more comfortable kept in the dark. It’s the most personal feelings and the subsequent art that is so humbly created released for all to see and judge as they will. And, in just about any artistic profession, you’ll have to get over that discomfort or find a different job. What is art if not expressing true emotion? The fact is, an immensely talented person will remain unknown and unappreciated until he or she comes to terms with vulnerability. Until we are bold enough to first accept the truth and then be totally real by exposing the full spectrum of ourselves, including the shadowy struggles or insecurities, the art will lack authenticity, quality and value. Therefore, it is crucial that I accept and admit my own darkness in order to draw the light. 

My new series, Drawing the Light, is established on a revealing foundation. The art stems from from the darkness I experienced. As part of the creative process, and in order to let my work have purpose and strength, I am standing under a spotlight. It’s not to glamorize anxiety (celebrity style) nor is it attention seeking. This revelation is to describe my artwork, but it also addresses the many conversations I’ve had with women who find themselves in similar shoes, who also feel tirelessly challenged to do it all in today’s world. So, I determined, it’s time to stop pretending everything is peachy when in reality, no one is actually doing it all, even if they seem like they are on Instagram. 

I delivered my third baby, Josephine, on August 17th 2018. It was a beautiful experience that I wrote about on my last blog entry. Then, while on “maternity leave”, I allowed a seed of anxiety to plant itself. I knew I needed time to recuperate, but I wanted to get back in the studio ASAP.  In my head, I was going to pick up right where I left off. After all, it was just painting. I also knew from experience that I don’t do well when I am not painting regularly. If you’re a runner/athlete, maybe that’s a feeling you can relate to. I had determined that sometime in October would be the end of “maternity leave”. Well, that proved to be quite difficult. The whole ‘three children and a job on little to no sleep’ routine wasn’t working in my favor. (hmmm…I wonder why?!) But, I was determined, no less, and so I was back in the studio part time according to my self-assigned deadline. 

The thing is, maternity leave does not actually exist for the self employed. It’s a period of time when you are intended to be focused on the baby and your recovery, but it’s not a clean break from the job. At the same time, you can’t make a human and pretend you didn’t….especially on your third human. I tried. You can’t. So as it turns out, no matter how determined, I just could not do it all, and that’s what my darkness boiled down to. 

In hindsight, but without going into too much detail, I let anxiety grab a hold of me. By the end of November, I felt paralyzed. Then there was so much to be done with Christmas around the corner and a ton of painting to catch up on so things just continued to get worse. When the baby finally started sleeping through the night, I stopped. In addition, I felt a depressing awareness that my favorite time of year was feeling like the materialized chaotic race that defeats the purpose of Christmas. I couldn’t stand that I allowed myself to get there, but I was stuck. It was a cycle of swirling anxiety, and I could not get my hands on the light switch. I could not see in the dark.

All I needed to do was paint. Something like this happens almost every time I go without painting for too long. Art is the best form of therapy I have found. Even though I knew what I needed to do to get out of it, the darkness misconstrued self-care into selfishness. It seemed that there were just too many people counting on me. My needs were irrelevant.  And, then, it was Christmas time; the season of love that gets disguised as mass hysteria focused on so many of the wrong things. The worst time ever to be dealing with a bout of postpartum anxiety. What I needed was more time….time to paint and time to be with my family and close friends. But, time is the one thing I did not have……what with all the Christmas events and parties and school programs and shopping. (Hello? Priorities?!?!) 

I can say all this now because I have spent two weeks in my studio painting every single day for hours at a time. I feel like a new person. Thankfully, the light within me is relit. Honestly, I didn’t know how dark it had gotten in there until I used painting to turn on the switch. 

Now I’m feeding off of those challenges. The very thing that drug me out of the darkness is teaching me about why it got dark in the first place. I was/am a basic human trying to be super-human; unrealistically trying to do all the things and be all the people and fill all the needs, except my own. 

I do feel that women can play two major rolls, like provider and mother, but there is a lot in between that has to go, and so much of the stress we find ourselves under is a result of trying to fulfill unnecessary/impossible standards chased by the fear of judgement.

By the end of December, feeling like I wasn’t going to pull off Christmas as we know it, my sister said to me “2019 is the year of self-care.” She is capable of gathering the perfect handful of words like that, right when I need them. It was all she had to say to remind me that other people are struggling, too. So, here I sit, using my scarce time to write this post because we all need to hear this. We need to cut loose from impossible standards. 

What came of me trying to do it all? Nothing. I was frozen with anxiety. I lost the ability to nurse my baby. I could not even finish Christmas shopping.... not my peak year of gift giving.  I missed the whole month. My favorite month. I didn’t want to leave the house to celebrate our 9th anniversary or my (actual) 34th birthday. 

Past generations of women have had their struggles, but here we are creating our own struggle. Much of my female generation is doing a hell-of-a-lot within a short period of 24 hours which is setting the bar just out of reach, and that’s not something we need to be proud of. We gotta take a breath! We need to get better at making confident choices on what’s working and what’s not. Then, we need to pat ourselves on the back, or for that matter, let someone else pat your back. Get a freakin’ massage because we deserve it even when we can’t be everyone and everything all day, everyday. There is no reasonable reason to feel guilty or judged when we need to say “no” to parent involvement at school or sitting on a committee or attending every Saturday morning birthday party and Wednesday night church meeting. And, we do not need to have any particular excuse other than the fact that we should not have to push ourselves all the way to the limit in order to be adequate. Maybe, like me, you don’t even recognize that all of our choices are just that, a series of choices...decisions.

So, is it necessary to go through dark in order to know light? My own darkness forced me to find the light, but I’m not willing to believe that we have to fall into a dark pit in order to know where the edge is. 

Do you ever worry that you’re missing the glorious light of your life for fear of the darkness, for fear that you won’t be able to do it all and be it all? Do you think, maybe, if you safely tread in the middle grey area of the spectrum, where you know you can still play all the rolls, everything will work out better? Do you wonder how you’ll feel about all this towards the end of your life? Will you be glad you chose to do what you felt you were suppose to be doing versus what you wanted to be doing? Or will you resentfully wish you had said “to hell with it” to all that shit that brought you nothing but stress while keeping you from real contentment ...real light?

We do not have to push ourselves over the limit in order to find the happiness that we have a right to pursue. Happiness is wherever/however you find light(...within healthy and moral reason). I write this to caution you on where the darkness lies. It lies on the other side of overwhelming yourself. 

I knew going in, a third child would not be easy, but I also knew it was going to be worth it, and I simply could no longer ignore God’s suggestion that He still had another someone for our family. I had to choose; remain in the safe grey spectrum of light where I could handle it all, or take a leap of faith and listen to His voice in my heart. Yes, my choice led me to a period of darkness, but the light, such light! And, now I know the darkness was my own doing, but God alone brought me the light.

Little story; Two years ago exactly I had a surprise pregnancy that caught me totally off guard and had me freaking out with, you guessed it, anxiety. I miscarried very early and felt a surprising relief. I took my response as a sign from God that our family was complete, and we were done having babies. A few months later, with my husband’s surgery approaching to seal the deal, I fell into a pit of depression, sobbing for a week, all day, all night. My heart felt broken like the time I miscarried years before when we were trying to have a second baby. I could not explain it, or understand it. I thought I knew what I wanted, what we wanted, but God was speaking to my heart about different plans. I was mourning the loss of something He intended for us. The night before the surgery we canceled it. About 16 months later, Josephine was born, and I can’t imagine how our family could have been complete without her. This little tale was worth including as yet another example of those heartfelt tugs leading me down His path. 

I paint from that heart felt intuition. My recent art is very different than what I was creating before.  I establish layer after layer of intuitive markings that flow out of my hand like a faucet. I just draw on and on, fulfilling it all. When I start a painting, I am doing it all; anything and everything my heart wants to release onto the canvas. It’s unorganized and overstimulating like the tangle I let myself get into this past fall. Then I come back to the painting honing it into an organized composition. I make choices by eliminating what is not working and further developing what is. It’s proof that I can handle all the energy in my life right now. It’s proof that faith leads to the light. Through painting, I saw that darkness is to light, as fear is to faith; competing opposites. 

I believe that my artistic gift came with an objective that’s bigger than filling your walls with art. I have heart felt faith that these children of mine and my painting and my writing are all components of a great purpose.  On the tip my tongue, there is an alternative way to connect, support and encourage the women of our generation and anyone else who can relate. I continue to write and share, even though every time I post to my blog, I get nauseated with the paranoia of what people will think of me. Even though it feels like standing under a spot light buck naked, I have to write, and put it out there in order to keep working towards this illusive purpose.

Light is not tangible; it cannot be outlined making it hard to know exactly what it is that we are reaching for. Only in abstract art can you draw the light. I used my art to lasso the lightness pulling it closer and closer until I could reach out and feel it. In recognizing the dark, the light became something I could grasp and tug; something I could draw. 

Below the Comfort Layers

Where painting, childbirth and God came together. 

“Why? Why in the world would you choose natural childbirth?” That’s what people say when you tell them your plan to deliver a baby old school style, like prairie life old school. No epidural and no induction. No medication. And, no unnecessary interference…please. That’s the way my third baby came into this world, and yes, it was a very intentional choice.

You can call me hard-headed or nuts or just one of those crazy free-spirited-artist types. It’s ok. It doesn’t really bother me, but I call it ‘a deep desire to experience and understand things my own way’. That’s still just a wordy way to say ‘stubborn’.… That sentence makes me picture my parents smirking… they know this about me too well. It’s hard for someone to tell me how to do things. This may at once be a short coming and a gift. When it comes to an issue, I find myself wanting to get down to the most basic level before I can move forward. For example, that’s part of why I write this blog. There’s more to my art than just painting pretty colors. I grow more and more inquisitive with age, and I keep finding myself asking for more truth and purpose and needing to search for answers to “why?”.

I want to compare this quest for truth to unearthing something that’s buried. When I am painting, that’s the analogy I get. As I paint, I create layers of marks and colors by repeatedly going against the grain and drawing over a seemingly finished painting only to remove part of that layer yet again and repeat the process. This is my painting method and also happens to be the method with which I live by. I am continually searching for a deep layer that has been established but forgotten about. However, I am not aware of this while I’m painting. Later, I’ll ask myself “why did I paint that way” and then I understand it.

It is my opinion that we deny ourselves meaningful experiences in order to stay comfortable. Shave off the top layer of fluff and padding, and we see what we are actually working with. We may have forgotten that we can choose to experience the real deal…probably because we fear pain and challenge. This approach might not be for you, and it does not always apply, but when I do choose the real deal over the fluffy stuff, I’ve found myself experiencing and learning more. When I didn’t add the layers to dull the pain, I get the full experience with all the feels. What if in our modern ways we are covering up something we were intended to be exposed to? 

I lean heavily on my heart where I feel God leaves His words for me. Two blog posts ago (Painting Parenthood) I wrote about the power and relief I’ve found in having the faith to trust what my heart wants and asks of me. I consider myself uniquely faithful. I have come to find a truly personal and sincere connection to God through painting.  While I paint, I listen to the matters of my heart where I believe God speaks to me.

Yesterday I was sitting in church uncomfortably holding Josephine who was restfully sleeping and giving me this crick in my neck. I managed to focus on the sermon long enough to grasp the message. For the second time in a matter of weeks I heard a reference to a specific Bible verse. The words struck me. This verse helped me pull all these thoughts together to form an explanation of why I felt so compelled to make a certain choice this year. 

“Teacher, what is the most important commandment in the Law?”

Jesus answered: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and most important commandment.

    Matthew 22:36-38

It is so simple and so obvious alone, but within the entire Bible and all of the teachings about God’s word, maybe that simple message gets buried. Simply love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

This year I experienced something that will change me forever because for the first time I did something seemingly drastic by boldly and blindly following what my heart was telling me. I have been hesitant to write about it because it is so deeply personal, yet I feel, on that same heartfelt level, compelled to share.

Natural childbirth; it became one of those things I never imagined myself doing but did. With my first two babies, I was induced and delivered with an epidural. I thought people were insane to choose that level of pain when it wasn’t necessary. In general, we mamas love to tell our birth stories because it’s one of the most amazing events you’ll ever experience and likely a day which you cherish, no matter how horrible the details. You’re proud because it’s no easy feat no matter how the process goes…and there are so many ways that process can go. This is not a birth story, though. This is the story of how I boldly listened to what my heart asked of me despite my fear.

Last year I had come to recognize a looming interest in natural childbirth. Over medicating in general had become a concern of mine. I’ve had some bad experiences with medication side effects, and I had come to determine that medicine often causes more harm than good. This led me to the idea of an unmedicated birth. I struggled with the notion…I didn’t want to want it. But, this idea became more and more instilled in my heart. It was in there weighing on me like a heavy stone, and once I was pregnant again, I determined I could no longer ignore it. The idea terrified me, though. Knowing my stubborn ways, I knew once I committed to it, I was going to do it. I was not naive to the pain of childbirth. I had experienced enough of it to know the extreme level of pain that was involved. But, once again, I felt it was in my heart to know the real deal. After all, in the history of childbirth, many more woman have birthed babies without an epidural than with one. What were we modern women missing out on?  

I had been left partly unsatisfied with the way I delivered my first two babies. I did not like the way the epidural, among other drugs, made me feel or the idea of inducing labor, but I did it anyway out of impatience. Plus, everyone else was doing it. During those deliveries, I felt weak and useless. I felt that I couldn’t feel or know what to do. I felt that I wasn’t experiencing or participating in what my body was essentially designed to do. Those reasons alone could not have compelled me to experience the pain of natural childbirth, though. This contributed to my decision, but it truly came down to that tug in my heart that said “You need to know.”. I had to experience it without the top layers.

The first question remains: Why???!!!! Most people add that punctuation. I know my people think I’m crazy…most people for that matter… I had been someone who couldn’t understand why you’d put yourself through it. I knew leading up to my due date that few would understand because I could hardly find the words to describe the answer for myself. I didn’t expect anyone to understand, and I didn’t feel compelled to make them understand, nor do I now. All that mattered was that Robert supported me and understood. He was all for it and was along side me as I educated myself for months, all the while keeping my plans mostly between us, not expecting anyone else to relate. The more we learned about giving birth unmedicated, the more it made sense and the less scary it became. I taught myself a lot about being mindful of pain and how to accept the pain as useful unlike the pain of an unfortunate accident. It was good productive pain. And that mindful understanding got me through two days of labor. I never shed a single tear this time around, unlike my first two deliveries which had me panicking and bawling crying over pain. Mindfulness is a powerful thing. 

God was on my side throughout the entire experience. That’s how I know with certain that He intended this to happen. I went into labor eleven days early before anyone had a chance to lose patience and induce labor. I had a very supportive and encouraging doctor (You're the BEST, Quin!) who is also a great friend. I had the company of my lifelong friend, Shelby, who has recently delivered two babies naturally and sees eye to eye with me on so many things. During those two days of labor, my contractions stopped cold at night both nights, and I went to sleep and slept hard. During the days I worked and painted and prepared my kids’ school lunches for the next couple days.  I got more walking milage in than during my whole pregnancy and did more squats than I have done in five years. For real…because I don’t do squats. I spent hours with Shelby while we walked hospital halls. I did lunges, squats, yoga ball bouncing…(I don’t do yoga either)… anything to move that baby. She timed contractions while we talked and laughed. Shelby even went to my house to get me my (brand new) yoga ball and carried it fully inflated to me in the hospital. I mean… there’s a friend. How awkward.

During the third day and final hour, I was screaming my head off like a 3 year old throwing a tantrum. I mean top of my lungs, high pitched screeching like I probably haven’t done since I was a 3 year old. They say you come out with some instinctual primal sounds…but it sounded more like a Halloween movie in my hospital room, and I had zero control over it. During this highly intense moment my mom and doctor had the wits to remind me of what was to come of the experience….other than a baby, obviously. Mom kept telling me I was going to be writing about this on my blog, and Quin said something to me like, “I can’t wait to see the paintings you create out of this experience.” To both I replied something ridiculously rude and sarcastic and uncharacteristically dumbed down. I think it was, “Well it’s going to be f’ing stupid and…ahhhhuuuhh…… ugly.”. It was wildly painful during that last hour, and there was some rather unlady-like language going on. During that final stretch, I forgot why I was doing this. Then suddenly, it was stunningly beautiful, an awe inspiring moment and achievement. There is a lot to look back on and smile at and even laugh about, too…Like, Robert keeps reminding me that I was trying to bite down on my thumbs through contractions, and he held my hands like a child because he worried I was going to chew my own thumbs off. What?!? So, yeah, shit got weird. 

I know what you’re think. (“Oh hell no.”)  I know that last paragraph isn’t selling it too well, but that’s not what I’m writing this for. If you ask my husband he says it was at the same time like a scene from The Exorcist and a really amazing and inspiring moment that shook him to the core. It is not for everyone, and I didn’t think it was for me. With it all said and done, I’d do it again. I am not sharing this experience to tell you to choose unmedicated childbirth, and I didn’t want to incorporate all this in my writing because I don’t want to sound self-righteous. But, the whole experience has left me with so much to learn and know and say and paint and write. I use this blog to explore my own understandings and how they relate to and surface in my art. I also write this to share with you what I’ve learned so that in some way you may also find the confidence to trust something scary you feel inexplicably compelled to do. Prior to that experience, I could have found some major reassurance in reading something like this on someone else’s blog, and that’s what determined me to expose this personal story.

It’s been 12 weeks since that life changing day. As for the “why”, I have found answers in moments of clarity during peaceful times like painting or walking and while I sat in church yesterday hearing that verse from Matthew.… “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.”.  While I couldn’t fully put into words why I needed to do this, I knew to faithfully trust what God had placed in my heart, and I chose to blindly follow it with all of my heart, soul and mind. Robert knew to help me follow this inclination, too. Even towards the end, I wanted to second guess my ability and questioned what I had committed myself to, and to my surprise, he wasn’t opening the exit door for me. I told him this kind of thing was for people who run marathons and stuff, but he didn’t buy it. He pushed me to stay on track and continued to build me up until the moment we met Josephine face to face. The journey, the whole journey, was purposeful. 

Next question: What? What was it all for? Maybe I don’t have the full answer yet, but here’s what I’ve gotten from it so far. I experienced pain that I didn’t know existed, yet my instinct did not tell me to give up and get an epidural. It just wasn’t even in my bag of options that day…. until it felt like I could not possibly go on and just then, just like they said it would happen, she was born. I found a strength I didn’t know I had. I found a connection and support from my husband that had never been needed prior to that moment. We both agree that that day our marriage grew roots like the thickest oak trees in our deep south back yard. God had plans for me to experience the emotions I came to know that day. He has plans for my family and me that I faithfully trust and lovingly concede to. There is a verified peace within me. I followed what I couldn’t even understand or explain and gained a deep seated feeling of safety. He designed and equipped us with all the tools we need. The way everything unfolded, from the progression of labor to the way my baby nursed effortlessly right away, showed me that we have to trust the design and lean on that trust boldly and blindly with all our heart, soul and mind.

I had so much support that day from the people I am closest to who all let me make this choice without asking me “Why?”. After my mother, Robert and I witnessed this, I think we all knew why, but the words weren’t there yet. It was only a heart feeling.

It’s easy to let the layers of comfort blankets build because the looming truth that’s beneath them is intimidating. I am sharing this to remind you (and myself) to dig deep into your soul and unearth what’s below the surface. Have the faith and courage to trust what’s waiting for you. Boldly rely on what God’s placed in your heart. First trust and later you can ask “why?”. 

“Teacher, what is the most important commandment in the Law?”

Jesus answered:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and most important commandment.

    Matthew 22:36-38

The pretty Price of a Rich Life

A life that’s rich with love and joyful experience comes at a pretty price and not in a ribbon tied perfect package.

I’m being totally straight forward here; life with a newborn is raw and unhinged. It just is. I don’t care who you are and how pulled together your life is, behind your front door is a very tired woman just trying to make sure, at the very least, her children (baby) eat and sleep. As far as I’m concerned, all else is optional for the first few weeks. I don’t think my daughter brushed her hair for at least a week or three after the baby came home. Honestly, if they brushed their teeth once a day, that would have been acceptable. The newborn time is short and oh so sweet, but boy is it ugly and messy…. the mother alone is a sleep deprived, milk leaking, hungry…no starving, diaper explosion and spit up stained, sour smelling mess. At any given time of day she could use a shower. It’s raw and at times down right ugly, and somehow, still my favorite time ever. I love the simplicity. I love the free pass to spend the entire day in pajamas getting to know my brand new person. And, this past time around, I soaked those days in even more than before. I am one of those people who covets the newborn stage (not everyone’s favorite age), but at a point I still found myself having an emotional breakdown; a good ole ugly cry. I was in much need of the talking-to I got from my best friend. Even with a love for these fleeting days, I needed help from the sinking baby blues. She pulled me from the hole I dug myself into from weeks of sleep deprivation, unfinished everything, the milk production “scaries” and that damn post baby inner tube still hanging on to my waist. She put me into this perspective that I am writing this from, and she reminded me that all that was regular will come back in time, but this little baby won’t be a baby for long (💔). She gave me the welcomed advice to relax and focus on nursing and Netflix for the time being. Music to my ears. All else will come in time.

It seems like every time I turn around lately I am reminded that it truly takes a village, and you’d be crazy to think that you are an exception. Even if your village helper is a phone call with a friend who’s been there, it will help more than you may realize.

 Now, at 7 weeks out, I am trying to focus on the world outside of my pajamas and baby laundry covered bedroom. When I make it to my studio to paint, I find myself thinking a lot about the ruggedness that is my new life with 3 children. It’s at once so ugly and so beautiful. It’s frantic and stressful at times and other times super slow paced and relaxing and completely blissful. In reflexion, I can understand that this combination is alright for now and makes for a nice balance. Stepping away to do something that makes me me helps with perspective. Things won’t always be this way, and that’s what makes it ok to enjoy it versus forcing the regularity to return before due time. I love this saying, but never before has it been more relevant: You can do anything, but you cannot do everything. You can have the things you truly want, but you better get ready to make some choices and learn the importance of saying “no”.

Consequently, my paintings are looking more like this current life of mine. The paintings are a little ragged and somewhat edgy; explorative and limit pushing; less tidy and perfected; more wild lines and loose ends yet created with intention and care. No apologies. I’m working with limited color palettes and finding a simplicity there that balances the static energy in the markings. 

The terms natural selection and survival of the fittest are appearing in my sketchbook notes….

natural selection | ˈnaCH(ə)rəl səˈlekSHən |noun Biology

the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. (or more art in my case)

-survival of the fittest

Survival is a heavy term, but it’s the right one. I could totally stay in my pajamas, and let everything fall to shit around me….very tempting some days. I could ignore the pressure to get back to painting, and send the kids to school everyday with a lunch-able and disgusting hygiene. I could just chill in a messy toy cluttered house nursing on demand all day….unmade beds and piled up laundry… That would be easy and that works for some people, but not me. That’s not me surviving because that’s not me. I am someone who ordinarily requires order and routine, organization and a relatively tidy house. But, surviving this new and challenging time is for me to choose painting, healthy and well-fed children, and a breastfed baby on a schedule. Those are my choices and that’s my way of surviving to the fittest. I have to adapt with all that’s going on, and it’s why selection is required on my part…no apologies just necessary choices. Because I cannot do everything…for now my beds aren’t always made and there are toys under my feet as I write this. I fit in a walk when I can, but it doesn’t happen everyday. What’s working is to allow life to unfold the way it needs to right now, adapting along the way. This is how I am surviving (not thriving) and what’s spurring my desire and ability to paint right now. It won’t last forever this way because, as they say, “babies don’t keep”.  Life is not perfect, and that’s perfectly fine. I’ve said it before, but what’s perfect is not real. A rich life is an imperfect one. A rich life is full of emotions and experiences that you wouldn’t want to miss. I couldn’t trade the mess I’m in now for something prettier. The price is too high.

Painting Parenthood

 While painting has given me a stronger sense of self-awareness, motherhood has given me more to be aware of. In a pressure filled society that pushes me in one direction, the act of painting is what pulls me back to center. The mental clarity I get from painting has shown me that sometimes what I choose has nothing to do with what I truly want and need. It’s easy to forget that it’s not about what others are doing, but rather, it’s about choosing a life for ourselves, for our own reasons. With so much noise in the distractions surrounding us, we often can’t even hear what our own hearts are asking for. The truth is, what we want and need can easily be different than what we have and do. Why is it so hard to choose what is truly best for us? Painting from parenthood has taught me to trust my instincts and shown me the value in finding my own path.

Motherhood, with all of its timeless wonderment, comes with a great deal of pressure. At this time when women have a role outside of the home, we still, by nature, have the gift of giving life to another and nurturing that life to its greatest fulfillment. However motherly the woman, the modern mother in all her maternal glory is eventually injected into our fast paced, high energy and high preforming society. There are great expectations around every corner which have the ability of stripping away the simplistic joys of parenthood. When you are focused on keeping up the same pace as those around you, it is hard to recognize and trust your own needs and set your own pace. Considering what a natural and time tested role motherhood is, it turns out that being a modern mother requires a great deal of self-awareness, confidence, and most of all, a profound sense of trust and faith.

Throughout my years as an art student and a professional artist, nothing ever brought my art more substance than being a mother. Each of my children have changed my art for the better. With so much discussion out there about the hardships of coupling a career and motherhood, I would like to say that without my children my career would be far behind where it is now. I have found that I need this balancing act to keep my moral muscles strong, and not making time for my work as an artist leaves me morally unbalanced; over focused on the wrong things. Likewise, not making time for my family leaves me uninspired. Thanks to the social stigmas attached to the working mother, I fully anticipated motherhood to negatively impact my creative momentum, but it did not happen that way. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Is it ironic that the very thing that many fear will threaten their professional life, has brought mine more balance, structure and satisfaction? This awareness made me feel out of place and naive, even.  

Everyone says that becoming a mother “changes everything”, and for me, that didn’t just mean my sleep schedule and social life. Maybe it was the sudden weight of another human’s life in my hands or that I could better understand how I want to spend my now precious time or that I realized what a gracious blessing it is to be a mother which many are sadly denied. No matter why, I know that the day my first child was born I immediately felt like the person I was meant to be. Parenthood lifted from my head and heart a fog that kept me from seeing the full picture.

I read an article last year that I can’t seem to forget. It was about creativity and motherhood. The article addresses the stigma among creative working professionals implying that you cannot be taken seriously in your work if you choose to have children. Established artists and writers are choosing their career over a growing family in order to avoid the distractions they expect children will bring to their work. The author uses the experiences of artists, writers and even lab rats to reveal how a mother’s brain actually becomes more creative, rather than less, and more efficient than it was prior to parenthood. The mother learns to use her time more wisely and effectively and sacrifices as needed to support her children/rat babies (ew) all while getting work done with sharper focus, speed and creativity. My eyes swelled with tears as I read this article because the theories and facts were so relatable and something I had genuinely felt but not discussed out loud. It was eye opening, and it factually confirmed what I already knew was true.

So, it’s not just me. There it is in writing; society’s negative spin on something I knew deep down to be good and right.

I had my first child with zero intention of turning my back on my art. In fact, it didn’t even occur to me. To my surprise, for years, I was continually asked, “So, are you still painting?”.  Of course I was. The question confused me. Not only is my art my job, it is just a part of who I am and what I do. I need to make art like I need to feel the sun or get a good night’s sleep. Sure, I can go without it, but it feels bad. I’ve gone through periods of not painting, and those close to me know that I am a less pleasant person (a.k.a. a bitch) without this creative outlet. We all need an outlet, but I am making a career out of mine, so I get to call it “work”.

I have been writing and talking about painting from the heart since 2011 because that was the year I became a mother. That year, I began to change from the inside, and my art reflected the transformation. It was that year that my paintings seemed to burrow down under the surface and find a depth that was both visible and conceptual. My work now had a more sincere source, a source that I can’t describe with any other word than “heart”. And so the thriving cycle within me began; a never-ending loop where motherhood sustains the artist and the artist sustains the mother.

With all of the positivity I’m giving motherhood, I am not denying that it has tested me in significant ways and forced me to make sacrifices and question God's reasons, but, without a doubt, parenthood has taught me much more than it has taken. Every day for six and a half years, Robert and I have struggled to parent our very strong willed, highly energetic child who has been pushing back since she was born. I have been brought to tears and even to my knees in total desperation. But, listening to my heart rather than comparing her to other children has let me trust that this child was put on the earth with a driving force to do something remarkable. The job of parenting her fierce heart is a tough one and one I take seriously and will continue to work hard at, but I will not put anything in front of God’s plan for her, even if that means making my job harder. We had a frightening experience with our daughter’s health that put me in the same desperate need for answered prayers and guidance, and it was then that I learned of the intensity of a mother’s intuition. With my son, God gave us a child with a very different set of parental needs than our daughter giving our family a certain sense of symmetry and joy that made us decide to let our family grow. And, from this side of a total of four miscarriages, I can say that I now have a stronger awareness of His plan. The plan doesn’t involve my ideas or my understanding or my earthly explanations. Even the experiences that hurt the most have been placed in my path for purpose. Those painful and challenging times gave me a sturdy realization that there is value in experiencing loss and fear, and experiences like these are teaching me to be patient with time. These are among the moments that have built within my chest a heart with more substance and trust giving me the means to make art that reflects the same. It was the act of making art that let my heart speak these truths loud and clear for me to hear. The solitude of my studio with no outside noise gives my inner voice center stage, and as I paint, I explore and understand these emotions.

My children, including the one that has yet to be born, have individually developed in me a deeper and stronger sense of heart. At the end of 2017, my art immediately reflected the new life I am now growing. Even during the first trimester drag, I could visually see how my maternal heart was again bringing new life to my paintings. Being a working mother comes with it’s challenges, sure, but it may also come with some unmistakable advantages. Motherhood, with all its trials and thrills, has allowed my work as an artist to grow richer. And, painting along side parenthood has given me the clarity to better understand my role as a mother.

My maternal art-making heart has taught me to lean in, to listen and to trust what it wants. There is great relief in finding the faith to trust what your heart wants and does not want. While it takes courage, making decisions based on those heartfelt tugs and gut instincts removes a great deal of the doubt and anxiety that come with parenting in our competitive society. Even with this understanding, I struggle to block out the loud pressures that want me to keep up with a pace that’s not for me. I am not always strong enough to trust my own voice above the louder ones. The voice in my heart is soft spoken, and each time I lean in, the words remain the same, repeating: “choose by faith and trust, truth and love.”

 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6

The Gardener 2018

Time Traveler 48x48

The progression of time is predictable. We can predict that a new day with new challenges and experiences will follow today, but we have no way of predicting exactly what tomorrow will bring. All we know is that time will continue moving in a forward motion at a controlled pace. We can not go to the past to make changes, but rather we must embrace the future with a willingness to allow changes to unfold building on the narrative that the past has written. Change is a component of time. Few things in nature remain unchanged from the movement of time. We are in the midst of some form of evolvement right now, and there is more to come. While some will accept change and grow because of it, others will try to resist this force of nature which is much bigger and stronger than themselves.

In 2017 I began a series of abstract art entitled The Harvest. A harvest is the process of gathering the products that resulted from a period of work. Last year’s series is a cultivation of everything I had explored and learned from my past art. This body of work could not have been painted without me having created the work that came prior. That series was the result of a sequence of events that even my most unsuccessful past paintings had contributed to. Every painting I complete, successful or not, leads to the next work I produce.

The evolution of my work happens with or without my intention, however, embracing natural changes makes way for new work to emerge, work that may have been suppressed otherwise, never having had a chance to even sprout. It is more effective for me to let my art flow from my heart through my hand than it is for me to establish something logical that first formed in my head. The most ingenuous and natural work develops from an inspiration so small and obscure, that if I were to first consider it from the head, I’d most likely ignore the suggestion.

It is now a new year making it a great stopping point to round out the work of last year to make room for those mysterious tugs making me want to spread my elbow a little wider and extend my arm a little further as I paint and draw. It’s a good a time as any to explore the fleeting, inexplicable notions leading me to the next body of work.

Having considered my last series a harvest, I reflected on other comparisons relating to growing crops. A gardener is a person who allows the beauty of growth to take place naturally working along side nature’s timing. The gardener is patient yet persistent, modest but ambitious with faithful trust in the capabilities of time. She has great aspirations for a handful of tiny seeds. She is aware of the possibility that the seeds may fail to thrive but much more engaged in how the seeds could grow.

In 2018 I will work towards a body of work entitled The Gardener. I will continue down the beaten path laid from The Harvest which established a recognizable technique in markings, composition and palette. The work of the past series will visibly carry into the next. The differences will be subtle but significant. There are more fluid and visible lines and stokes suggesting the concept of following natures flow as I allow paint to do what paint does, applying it in various forms of texture, application and color, and careful, as always, not to feel the need to over manipulate and disguise the characteristics of oil paint.

Intuition is nature’s advice. Nature's timing is trustworthy and has proven its power showing us that to change is to grow. By choosing to follow intuition and embracing inevitable newness, I have discovered a different awareness of time and the peace that lies in trusting it. I choose to follow every artistic instinct. Those suppressed and quiet impulses have a mysterious allure convincing me to simply plant every tiny seed, and let it grow.

Talking Heads: Well, how did I get here?

What It Takes 36"x48"

    Here I am painting portraits. How did I get here? This is not my art…. or is it? That song is about the passage of time and how it just zips by sometimes, and then we stop and ask ourselves; how did this all happen, and is this really me? When I look around my studio lately, that’s what I am asking myself. I wasn’t always aware that I was making so many decisions until I look at how much has changed within my work over this last year. In hind-sight I understand so much about each decision I was making and how those choices developed the artwork I am creating today.
    My paintings have evolved over a span of time and not overnight and not with a single decision to do so. I did not wake up one day and choose to embark on something new. In fact, I have been pushing portraits to the back of my head for years. On some level I have been selfishly preserving portrait painting…because I love painting and drawing heads and faces, and I believe I was afraid of what would become of that joy if I approached it in business. With that said, maybe you could say this year’s Closer series has been my way of dipping my toe in to test the water, but even still, not intentionally was I entering the portrait game.

   It started with an impulsive urge to render the human head….and so I followed it aimlessly. 'Act now and think later’ is my rather laid back approach to art anyway and so this was no different. And then, painting my own children was an easy decision and one I gave almost no thought at all. I just grabbed an oil stick one day and started drawing. My mind had begun to picture a loose, underdeveloped drawing in a further developed painting. The crossed face that serves as a grid for artists to proportionally place facial features was a key element, but rather than layering on the actual facial features, I allowed the cross to represent the face. This was a technique I have used before in figure drawing, but applying it to a large scale oil painting was new and experimental for me.
    So I waded into the water. I was ankle deep and still cushioned by the abstract, vague and loose depiction which to my surprise resulted in a very recognizable so called “portrait” of Lelia and Sonny. This was a comfortable place for me to take on portraits. I was confident that I wasn’t losing my recognizable painting style. The portraits remained undefined enough to render my usual markings and allowed my color palette to carry over from my non-objective abstracts.  It was a completely organic and unforced transition….the only thing I changed was the subject matter. But, I was still interested in digging deeper, and that meant finding a place for features and figuring out the challenge of how to incorporate the realism without losing myself. How can I apply facial features and remain loosely abstract and “me”?
    I have the most innate love for painting and drawing certain things and the head/shoulders is one of them. I’ll try to explain it, but there is something mysterious and intriguing about certain features, and all I want to do is recreate them with my own hands. This is about to sound strange….I’ll have to agree, but maybe it will help you to embrace something seemingly weird. You never know what great things are hiding under fear. This list describes some of the inexplicable things that I love about working with the head, shoulders and face.
-The shape of the head/skull. I love the feeling of holding an infant’s heavy head in my hand and noticing the boney curves of the skull.
-The hairline. I love cowlicks and hair parts… I love hair cuts and styles. In the simplest form these take on geometric shapes.
-Cheek bones and the apples of the cheeks. It’s like the back to basics of painting the tones and hues of the round ball in Painting 101.
-The angles and lines in the collar bone and shoulders. These linear and angular bones give me control of the composition of the painting. Like arrows pointing you where to look.
-Gentle curves like the upper line of the upper lip and the crease in the eyelid. I also love to define the white of the eye around the iris rather than vice versa. It’s like a tiny version of the way I wrap the whole subject in a white painted background.
    The decision to follow these fascinations felt uncomfortable at first. I quickly dismissed that reservation and chose to trust my heart and follow this white rabbit of an idea. Once I sat back to reflect on this unfamiliar work I began to understand my need to get this stuff on paper. Throughout my writing, I have continually referred to my hand and heart working together. In the beginning I don’t try to understand why I want to paint what I paint, I just do it and seek out the reason later. I can give credit to my mind for making certain preliminary and necessary decisions, but the creative work is done when I let go of the analysis and fear in my head. The resulting painting tells me more about myself than I was aware of, and in this case, these bowed heads were talking to me.
    There is intimacy in the zoomed-in perspective of the paintings in my Closer series. The abstracted turned down heads speak about an inner sense of discretion and self-awareness. The multiple head abstract paintings are a nod to relationships and the various ways we find connections with others. It only takes one common thread to create a bond. Whether it’s sisters, friends, a mother and daughter, a husband and wife, the abstract portraits are less about the physical traits of the subject and more about unspoken feelings and connections and the heartfelt emotions we relate upon. While the abstract feature-less paintings represent intimate characteristics and feelings, the portraits containing facial features bring attention to what’s less discreet but maybe overlooked.
    I have faith in knowing my purpose as an artist is to bring light to the magnificent things God has created in us and for us. Although so much of my work is abstract, I paint from the most honest and heartfelt emotions and observations, and later, I write about them giving total abstraction intention and purpose. In this same way, I am unapologetically intrigued by these human features and the sentiment behind them, and as long as my heart is leading me there, I’m going to follow it. My head wanted to talk me out of chasing down an uncertain direction, but I am mesmerized by the mystery of what my heart wants to show me.
There is an answer to ‘How did I get here?’. This is my art…. and it is not as far off as it seemed. All my work has been created from the same love of looking carefully at color, line, shape, value, texture, as well as, emotion. Artists are the most observant people, and that’s what’s compelling us to create. I notice the form and volume in cheek bones, and a swift line in the hair, and the unique way facial features are arranged, but I am also captivated  by traits behind those visible characteristics. Many artists have painted a beautiful heads, but I am discovering ways to paint what's in the heart.

 

Questions and Answers

View fullsize

While we are scrambling through some years constantly asking questions, there are other years that find answers, and many times the answers were there all along. It really depends on how clearly you can see your picture and how willing you are to make edits.

I frequently write about how my paintings go through rattling challenges right along side of me. A while back I became exhausted and bored with my painting method. Over the past two years, I searched for a painting process that was truly enjoyable. I spent a lot of time more dedicated to the process than the result, experimenting with a range of techniques, tools, materials and surfaces. It was a long period of questions, wondering what else may be up my paint covered sleeve.

I recognize that I am moving away from a question year and beginning a year that answers. I have seen my work change within the process. I can look back and see when I began to abandon a technique that had been working for me. I veered off wanting to know if I could paint without it…daring myself to be vulnerable and paint something I had never been bold enough to call a finished painting. What I left behind was the heavy impasto application I used for so long. That had been the ‘final touch’ that made my paintings complete. I got tired of it and felt like it was even a crutch. I spent two years ignoring my palette knife, and it ended up being the tool that brought my paintings into a new light. It was always there, sitting on my palette while I did back flips trying to avoid it. (some people call that stubborn. smirk)

A question year is spent disassembling, scattering and rearranging the pieces into a confusing picture. When the picture looks blurry, the obvious has a way of blending in. An answer year is when we gather the useful pieces, reassembling them into a new picture. The new picture is clear and focused. It's more dynamic and layered with substance, and the truth becomes obvious again. Every answer year gives our picture more and more strength thanks to the uprooting questions we asked ourselves.

In life, there are years that ask and years that answer, but nothing changes unless you hear the question and decide to react.

Where I've Been 48x36

What I Know I 48x48

Vital Signs (Reworked)48x48