Soaring with the Divine – The Swallows of Summer – Ink on Canvas 150 x 100 cm
This week I’ve been feeling down about my art! A friend suggested that I was being a drama queen, which made me laugh, but I don’t think that was what was happening. I had simply lost my ability to discern and was panicking that I couldn’t tell what was good, bad or indifferent. With an exhibition in Edinburgh on the horizon that felt disastrous! ‘Maybe it’s all crap!’ seemed a conclusion and of course a cop out.
And then the words of wonderful healer and wise woman, Denise Linn, came to my mind.
“Energy up? Energy down? Energy neutral?”
She uses these questions to help folk clutter clear – how does this thing make you feel?
I realised I could use these emotional energy question to decide what are keeper paintings and what are paint overs!
My goodness! Talk about an epiphany! So simple! A brilliant way to work out paintings!
No longer is the question whether the image is good, bad or indifferent, but what the painting does to my energy levels. Rather than being self critical, using these questions as a process is a way of deciding from the heart and body to feel better. These questions are an escape route from habitual thinking and a way to move forward and up. The answers are unexpected. That is wonderful! It’s letting ‘up’ energy be the curator!
Now I can sort out art for the upcoming exhibition by simply asking whether the painting is taking my energy up? If the answer is yes, then it is a double win, for not only am I feeling good but there is a good chance it will take someone else’s energy up too!
These two paintings were started two years ago and finished today. Working on them made me remember Denise’s brilliant questions as I reconnected with how much I enjoying painting them using feathers, inspired by the swallows diving over the ‘pond’ in the field and the sparrows in the hedgerow. The swallows will be returning from Africa soon and I can’t wait to see them.
