Finding Wild

Sometimes I want to change the name of my Wild Painting.  I took it on as a sort of whim, based on what my good friend Morgan told me about her Wild Writing classes, inspired by the work of Natalie Goldberg.  The WILD in my case, being more a creative state of mind, than anything to do with the wilderness or nature.  Morgan also runs a facebook group Wild Motherhood, and she really does love nature and being out in it - and her life now is nomadic - living in a van and travelling out in it most of the time. So it totally suits her.

For me my Wild is more like the freedom of the creative mind.  That space where you no longer know what you are doing, there is no plan, it becomes the leap in the dark.  For me, that space there, the departure from the known is pure creativity.  For we are now, making it up as we go along.  We must become present, very present, and sense and respond to what happens next.

I went to a mindfulness course run by some proper far out Californians who had actually helped train the chaps at the Navy Seals, and Nasa.  They explained that being able to be fully present was necessary in VUCA situations.  That is Volotile, Uncertain, Changing and  Ambiguity.  And that our times, now, changing so fast, are VUCA like this.

This might be a diversion.

It's not.  It's about presence.  And being able to fully respond.  That is how it is when I am painting, and in my Wild Mind (as Natalie Goldberg puts it).  Leaping into the unknown, CREATING something new.  Its at once exhilarating and deeply calming.

I was going to write a blog about how the folk who come on my weekends are so often people who are creative, but just haven't been it for a long time.   They know they are, but somehow they just don't get around to it.   I know this too.  I posted up on my FB page this quote about how women often get distracted by tidying up, and so never get around to the actual creativity part.  Here it is.

“I've seen women insist on cleaning everything in the house before they could sit down to write... and you know it's a funny thing about housecleaning... it never comes to an end. Perfect way to stop a woman. A woman must be careful to not allow over-responsibility (or over-respectabilty) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she "should" be doing. Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Steven Pressfield writes about it in his short book The War of Art - like its an actual battle with an actual thing.  He calls it fighting resistance.  It's the thing that gets in the way of you getting creative.  In so many ways this is why I created the Wild Painting Weekend.   The first time I did it, it was just for me.  If I booked the studio, if I invited others to join me -  I would beat resistance and spend time painting.   And it worked and it was amazing.  And it worked for others too.  Who went on to restart their painting practice and sell more paintings and get creative again.

So now I have booked a studio - my own space!!! OMG  - (well -  for 5 months it is - its  a sublet!)

 I am totally cacking it to be honest.  I really do not know what I am doing.  And yet.  I have this feeling of diving into reality, of being alive.  And I know I am leaping into the dark and now I must sense and respond.  I have obligations that I have set myself and I must step up to the challenge.

Facing that blank canvas I am going to paint, and paint, and paint.  Until the painting emerges.