The smell of oil paint on a canvas and the turpentine always leaves me feeling more at home in my space. It's always a challenge to get started, to begin what may be a failed attempt at capturing that thought or image in my mind or a successful representation of my imagination. The desire is there, but it is as though balls and chains are attached to my arm until I paint my first few strokes. It becomes easier and my hand flows more naturally as I see the image come to life, there before me.
I go through this every time. Each time I know and tell myself it will be fine and I'll enjoy it once I get back into it again.....but it is always hard for me to begin. A battle of wills inside of me. Because the failure to achieve the results I desire will always set me back. And it is this fear that eats away at me. I feel my productivity dwindle.....and once again the brushes remain sitting, untouched for several more months to pass.
Painting for me is like to a relationship. With the disappointment and failure comes the reluctance to attempt to start over. I need to build my trust in my relationship to the brush. When the artist and his tool can become one, that is when they truly express their soul. If feelings and thoughts would be so easy to express in words and through visual representation we would be so much more understanding of one another. But the soul feels the barrier, and we seek ways to reflect what is within. The challenge makes the success all the more precious.
If only feelings and thoughts could be physically represented by a small blue ball of light, that we could pass on to the other, perhaps so much more would be respected within each others hearts. Understanding is key....and yet we understand so little. And with the fear of the unknown, or sheer ignorance we break the fine strings that bind us together. And so waves of broken hearts wash up onto the shores of the isle of loneliness.
And so I yearn to return to my painting again...
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