Quiet Time

None of us paints in a vacuum, in the perfect studio, the perfect life. No such life exists nor should it. Just like colors that only exist in relation to one another, we are literally nothing without our relations. We paint amidst, our families, our neighbors our illnesses and crisis’s our chaos, our addictions.

Over the past three years I went through some challenging times. A few people know just how challenging they were for me. But I really want to talk about our limitations. We all have them. We bump up against them every day. You can think of talented people as being slightly less limited in a particular area than others. But really for the most part, a limitation is an activity that we are doing to ourselves. “I can’t do that”. “I’m too tired, too poor, to fat”…whatever it is. How do we move past, actually transcend our limitations?

I’m talking about re-framing the impossible as possible; An “I can’t” into “I can”. Over three years ago I knew I wanted to put my workshops in an online format of some kind. I have a friend named Judy Wise that inspired me. She is an amazing artist that does workshops all over the country, she has a great blog too. She’s cool. Well, she created an online workshop and got over 200 students to participate, sold interactive DVDs and made a tidy sum doing it. I thought, well, I’ve got a great following, a great workshop curriculum that’s really popular, I can do that too!  I talked with Judy and the thing sounded really complicated to me. She’d filmed it herself and worked with someone on the creation of it. She learned the editing software etc. etc. and she warned me of how hard it was.

So I spent the next year sort of exploring it here and there, interviewing a few film people to help me and getting astronomical bids and feeling mostly deflated and wondering why Northlight Publishing didn’t contact me, and other kinds of bullshit like that. Mostly getting overwhelmed.

Finally after many months of this, wondering, flailing around, feeling sad, feeling guilty, feeling jealous. I got my head together. I didn’t stop feeling, I just made all of those feelings into the lesson I needed to learn. I made my lifestyle fit with the possibility of taking on such a project. I changed my tendencies. I made things small and quiet and easy. I decided that I could in fact do it. I decided to just be happy.

I began to do what I would have thought impossible for me to do. At 52 years old, now 53. I learned how to use my computer in a whole new way. I learned to manage my files and learned new key commands. I taught myself, Indesign, Illustrator and went deep into Photoshop. I learned Imovie but then had to switch to FinalCut pro when Imovie wasn’t enough. It was like I went to design and film school. I Learned to light my studio for filming and how to do voice-over. I learned to navigate my website and update it in a whole new way. So, this DVD I have in my hand, I did every single bit of it; from the filming to the design to the authoring and the promotion of it which includes this blog. Which brings me back around to my first point that we don’t actually do anything alone in a vacuum. That is exactly how and why we can transcend our limitations and do ANYTHING!! Because we are not, in fact alone.

My point in telling you all of this is that you can do anything. Painting in pastels is not a scary thing unless you make it so. Don’t make it so.

For instance when I teach a workshop, I give a lot of information that you could get easily be overwhelmed by and could possibly become a hindrance to painting rather than a help. But why not re-frame such and think of the information as a gift, like little gems, (I hope) that you would put into your treasure chest. Receive the gifts. Do not armor yourself from them.

So I’m very happy to introduce my first video, Loosen Up Intensive Volume I & II. A good friend  in my life helped, gave advice, time and mostly love; simply refused to console or cajole me and indulge me in my “I can’ts”. I’m grateful. I can’t believe I did it!!

It’s available as a DVD and as a download. I’m so excited to be able to finally put this out there and share it with everyone! The DVD or download set is $95.00 or you can get Volume I or II separately for $49.95.