It has been good to pause. In the last few weeks, I feel shifts moving within me that are generative. Stepping back from a number of things, including Friday Letters, has opened up space for me to observe and discern what I need to cultivate and what I need to let go of. I have listened to Krista Tippet’s interview with John O’Donohue multiple times. His words continue to impact me, nourishing my soul and providing an unexpected north star to my thinking. I have included a link to the talk at the bottom of the letter if you didn’t get a chance to listen last time. Of all of the poetics that sung out of O’Donohue’s mouth, this phrase - “Beauty as calling” - has stuck with me the most.
Beauty as calling evokes a sense of beauty as a beacon in the night, a magnetic force I am drawn to by some internal mystery. It also feels like a calling to come home to my spiritual nature. It becomes a honing device. Each time I tend to the beautiful, I weave a little part of myself back with my soul.
As part of this exploration, I have moved my easel outside. Initially, I brought out an abstract painting that I was in the middle of working on. In the studio, I had visions of what I would add - a few simple lines and shapes to transform it. Once outside, it was impossible to think this way. Which really struck me. The lusciousness of the landscape overtook any ideas I had for minimalism. And so instead, I painted in immersion with the landscape. This process also sparked a desire in me to re-learn painting as a craft. To slow down and fill in my gaps of knowledge that emerged from both an art education that over-valued ideas and under-taught the craft of painting and my own attachment to the idea of a thing vs the love of a thing. I love ideas and resist the mechanics of a process. Going slow and studying something until I master it can be a challenge for me. I am better at moving fast with ideas and going slow with procrastination!
Yesterday, as I wrapped up painting, I took the time to truly clean my palette. Layered with old paint from remnants of painting sessions too hastily cleaned up, I slowly started scraping. The paint layers were stubborn but eventually they began to release. It felt cathartic. This task became a physical manifestation of scraping off layers of old ways of thinking that no longer served me. The result was more satisfying than the painting I had just made, and also more illuminating. Taking the time to truly slow down and remove the bits that no longer provided life or beauty and reconsider my painting process from the ground up felt fabulous.
I’ll leave you with a quote from John O’Donohue -
The poet wants to drink from the well of origin; to write the poem that has not yet been written. In order to enter this level of originality, the poet must reach beyond the chorus of chattering voices that people the surface of a culture. Furthermore, the poet must reach deeper inward; go deeper than the private hoard of voices down to the root-voice. It is here that individuality has the taste of danger, vitality and vulnerability. Here the creative has the necessity of inevitability; this is the threshold where imagination engages raw, unformed experience. This is the sense you have when you read a true poem. You know it could not be other than it is.
Its self and its form are one.
Until next Friday!
Be well, breathe, read, and make some art!
Jen