Shadow Magic

Your passing death’s shadow
crossed my sun.

We all fall at one time or another,
reflecting our own low opinions of ourselves
in the shadows others create
when they step into our light.

We all give up on the sun for sundials,
experience for knowledge,
uncertainty for security.

Turning our back on innocence
as a waste of time
only makes it more precious.

Climbing the ladder
of a life
begins with small feet.

Mystery,
if it isn’t God,
might be some kind of ordinary magic.

In my parents bedroom,
lying between them one night in fear,
I observed the heads of cyclops
in the reflection of mirrors
swirling with the moonlight.

This magic is the same magic
that heals old wounds

The wisdom of a master
bears witness to the passing of shadows.

The innocence of a child
recreates them again and again

The master is the child
mixing light and darkness
to create shadow magic.

Facing the shadow that blocks out the light
is mastering this magic,
learning to live the whole day,
not just when the sun is high.

Mastering this magic,
is knowing when to take refuge in darkness
So we can reinvent the shadows
when light comes again.

Your death’s shadow
is just the moon
crossing paths
with the sun.

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Geoffrey teaches yoga and practices hands on healing through massage, bodywork, and energy work in Northern California.  He loves to write, dance salsa, look up obituary’s , and hang out with his best friend and wife, Sama.

You can find his art at his page on Facebook, GeoArt.
You can contact him at geoart 108@gmail.com.

 

How We Spend Our Innocence

“Experience, which destroys innocence, also leads one back to it.”–James Arthur Baldwin

“We’ve let the blade of our innocence dull over time, and it’s only in innocence that you find any kind of magic, any kind of courage.”–Sean Penn

“If my innocence will cost me my life, so be it.”–Peter Fleming

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We all spend our innocence on something
building temples
to all that is holy,
fashioning wax wings
leaping and soaring
towards the sun
for a cause
a belief
love
a vision
a Guru
a God.

After we give it away,
our temples change hands,
and our wings melt,
falling back to earth,
we receive more enduring gifts,
ordinary gifts
that come from fire and dirt.

The word innocence mingles with pain.
Our cumulative years becoming a chasm
of resentment,
guilt,
regret.

Yet…

Perhaps the stars are not so far away,
and innocence is discovering
our hearts are capable of holding the universe.

Doves coo,
dreams swirl with the early light,
and a voice I know very well,
that sees through the filter of starlight,
whispers,
“Don’t give up on the world.”

 

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Thanks for being here. I am.  Right now, you can find my artwork on Facebook at GeoArt,   You can also find our artist’s group on Facebook at ArtisTribe, a group of artists supporting artists, and ArtisTribe Magazine, the page that supports that group.  My interviews with other artists is on my other blog, “ArtisTribe Interviews.”  You can reach me at geoart108@gmail.com

All my best! Geo

Where Egos Die

I remember the first days
of cutting wood for roads
into the end of the world.

Together, but always alone,
I sought refuge in the vast wilderness
that was now our home
only to be drawn into battle
by wills that became vicious.

To find a way out of this killing ground,
where egos die,
only to be born again
and again,
I reincarnated.

The stars never seem to care.

The window I looked to open
did not give me the breeze I wanted.
Smelling death
I looked back
and sought another path.

You lie in soft dirt,
a meal for vultures.

It’s all the same.

Give it a little time
and it’s all the same.

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Thanks for being here. I am.  Right now, you can find my artwork on Facebook at GeoArt,   You can also find our artist’s group on Facebook at ArtisTribe, a group of artists supporting artists, and ArtisTribe Magazine, the page that supports that group.  My interviews with other artists is on my other blog, “ArtisTribe Interviews.”  You can reach me at geoart108@gmail.com

All my best! Geo

 

The Rowdy Ones Continued: You Might As Well Dance

…Risk taking is less risky when you are not attached. It is more precious when you are.

I am attached and excited at the prospect of starting over. It was tumultuous. We jumped in the sack a little too fast. I gave you a diamond ring when flowers might have been more your thing. You’re a rowdy folk. Let’s have some tea, you and me. I will bring the grays and the blues, you just bring you.

To be continued…(End of last blog, The Rowdy Ones)

Some time has passed.

The attachment that made moving forward so difficult was simply that I had expectations. The first versions of the painting had a wonderful color scheme. It was straight out of what I had envisioned. But you know how when you think you know who your perfect partner is, and maybe even find them, only to find out that what you thought was perfection was actually boring?

I was bored with the painting. I couldn’t explain it. Colors of blue, green, fluorescent orange, yellow and pink—great! Structure of plaster, rock and sand—great! I wasn’t happy. Now it was covered in blue and gray and sitting in my studio.

We didn’t talk for two weeks. That’s how it is when things get so hot and steamy. We needed some time apart. I decided to make other social plans.

I pulled out my pencils, pens and watercolors and visited some old flings. I had done a series of quick sketches about a year ago with pen and ink. I was playing in dreamtime, that time right before you fall asleep or right after you wake up. These creations wanted to play and I was game. We danced through two week, as I sat at our red table past midnight most nights and birthed small galaxies.

Dreaming Boy, Watercolor and ink on Bristol Paper, 11″x14″

There were floating boys in sun filled skies,

dreaming happy private thoughts through kaleidoscope clouds

There were dragon flowers blossoming out of nothing,

bursting forth with psychedelic petals and spiral vines.

Dragon Blossom, Watercolor and ink on Bristol Paper, 11″x14″

There were cave men in aboriginal dreamtime stories

exploring the collective unconscious.

Primordial Man
Watercolor and Ink on Bristol Paper, 11″x14″

Dragons returned,

their wildness tamed by wilder women,

who pulled out demons, anger and depression,

offering them to angels who transmuted

the demons into dreams.

Wild Dragon, Wilder Woman,
Watercolor and ink on Bristol Paper, 11″x14″

These were the fantasies,

rowdy in their colors and impossible shapes.

I had viewed others walking in this reality,

without judgment,

sharing their worlds that drew me in deep,

almost suffocating,

but not wanting to come up for air

because of the joy of swimming around in the depths.

 

These visions, birthed by other artists, opened a door for me, to allow the fantastic to be born. I felt invigorated, grateful to have allowed myself to follow my muse.

I considered that I could have let the other painting live. I could have, and could have accepted it like one accepts that black sheep in the family, the rowdy ones that are difficult to be around, yet something about them keeps drawing you back. I could have done that. But I didn’t.

There was a stirring. I was finishing work one afternoon, tired, but feeling ready to go back to the rowdy one. Driving home in my old truck, watching the light through the trees on the rural road to my studio, I had a feeling there was something ready to come out.

Walking into the womb of paints and tools, there it was, a mass of blue gray with some orange poking through. It happened so effortlessly. I was stretched, moved into new possibilities. Doors in my aristvision opened and there it was. Nanatuk.

Nanatuk, 30″x30″ Acrylic, plaster, spray paint, rock and sand on canvas

Nanatuk is the Inuit word for islands of land in the middle of glaciers. This painting felt like the gray blue of the land in an arctic terrain of silver and sky blue horizons, the sun in a solar negative matching a landscape that on first glance has very little variation and on a closer inspection is full of infinite subtlety.

Upon finishing the painting, it’s name given, a piece of wisdom was shared with me. This rowdy painting, this rebel that didn’t settle, revealed an Inuit proverb:

If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance.

We danced the Tango under moonlight…

Thanks for being here. I am.  Right now, you can find my artwork on Facebook at GeoArt,   You can also find our artist’s group on Facebook at ArtisTribe, a group of artists supporting artists, and ArtisTribe Magazine, the page that supports that group.

My interviews with other artists is on my other blog, “ArtisTribe Interviews”

You can reach me at geoart108@gmail.com

All my best! Geoffrey

The Rowdy Ones

When we first met.

I am in the middle of a painting right now, and it has taken me for a roller coaster ride. When a painting reminds me that I don’t have the final say, all I can do is step back and listen.

I am painting, drawing, interviewing artists, and having the time of my life. It pays me back everyday to do what I love. My hands have gold paint on them on a regular basis, I get paint on my clothes when I just stop by the studio for a “touch up,” and it is after midnight and I am still writing after finishing an interview with a lovely artist. Poems come out on a regular basis, and I can’t stop taking photos of rusted out trucks and close ups of trash and nature.

The other day, I read Rob Brezny’s horoscope for Virgos (a club of which I am a member):

According to computer security company Symantec, you’re not in major danger of contracting an online virus from a porn website. The risk is much greater when you visit religious websites. Why? They’re often built by inexperienced programmers, and as a result are more susceptible to hackers’ attacks. In the coming weeks, Virgo, there may be a similar principle at work in your life. I suspect you’re more likely to be undermined by nice, polite people than raw, rowdy folks. I’m not advising you to avoid the do-gooders and sweet faces. Just be careful that their naivete doesn’t cause problems. And in the meantime, check out what the raw, rowdy folks are up to.

Artwork is like this—there are the nice ones and the rowdy ones. I am in the middle of a rowdy one. If I want to really engage it, I will have to listen and stretch, to be uncomfortable with what is coming out.

When I started I wanted to see orange and blue. More colors slathered onto the piece. I walked away, came back, walked away again, covered it in gold, added white touch ups, and it became a stranger. “You don’t know me do you?” It was like being a young man making love with a woman, stumbling and groping, not knowing how to touch her while she patiently guides your hands. That young man thought he was something else, and was humbled in the face of intimacy and lovemaking. But what a gift!

I touched this painting, pits of orange and blue with gold all over it. I don’t feel right. As is becoming my habit, I photograph my work as I go. Taking the photos, I didn’t realize that the camera had a filter that removed all the colors except blue. Blues and grays where all that showed up in the painting, and it was so interesting!

The next day I was in the supermarket buying groceries, and saw the paint section. I live in a small town where the supermarket and hardware store are all in one. You can buy bread and nails. I walked up and saw a small sign that said a pint of paint was $4.99. A pint! That is a lot of paint. I could see some grays and blues right there. I am buzzing around the cashier who is mixing the paint for me, excited about my new found treasure and this new opportunity. This is why I create, to wonder at the little things, colors shapes, texture form. Stuff that in it’s origin costs nothing, all we have to do is look.

I know that if I paint over all that work that I’ve done, it could end up a mess, but nothing matches this conversation with this 30”x30” piece of canvas. It is a lover, a friend, a confidant, a therapist, a teacher, a mirror.

It says things like, “Am I your enemy?”

or

“Is your love unconditional? When I look gaudy and done up like a woman working the street in desperation, or when I am flat and rough like a homeless man, when I am all gold and copper and shiny like window store jewelry, or when I am all gessoed up and innocent—a blank canvas, can you still love me? More importantly, do you love yourself?”

or

“Are you willing to stay with me through the difficult times? Will you see this through? ”

or

“What is more important to you, what you get out of me, or what we share together?”

or

“No one knows you like I do. Will you listen? Can you take my criticism? Do you realize I can’t lie to you, you can only lie to yourself?”

Yes, I am talking to this painting. You can lock me up later.

Risk taking is less risky when you are not attached. It is more precious when you are.

I am attached and excited at the prospect of starting over. It was tumultuous. We jumped in the sack a little too fast. I gave you a diamond ring when flowers might have been more your thing. You’re a rowdy folk. Let’s have some tea, you and me. I will bring the grays and the blues, you just bring you.

To be continued…

Thanks for being here. I am.  Right now, you can find my artwork on Facebook at GeoArt,   You can also find our artist’s group on Facebook at ArtisTribe, a group of artists supporting artists.

My interviews with other artists is on my other blog, “ArtisTribe Interviews”

You can reach me at geoart108@gmail.com

All my best! Geoffrey

 

Creating is Trusting

I am a middle aged man going through a transition from a life that was about pleasing others to a life that is about following my own heart and dreams. I am using writing and art to get to know myself again. This is my musings on this ordinary journey.

Trust

The heart burns

in many different ways.

This heart burns with disappointment.

Distrust.

I’ve locked God away in a little room,

and dance around it

like it is an invisible elephant.

I can’t seem to get away from myself.

The thing about distrust and disappointment

Is that they are polishing rags

in this house of mirrors.

The more you hold on,

the clearer the reflection.

Staring at my face,

looking into my eyes

down deep into that pit

it is dark

and even here where you can’t see your reflection

in the pools of tears

the well of feeling that we give names

like Sadness and Despair

is blue black here.

Every hole has an opening

and the darker it is,

the easier it is to see the way out

when the sun is shining.

And when it isn’t?

It always comes back around.

You can trust in that.

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            I started writing this poem at the beginning of this recent transition, when I was in a darkness about where I had gotten to in my life. I had only finished the first seven lines. I picked it up the other day, and said, “Yeah, I can feel that. But there is more that I have learned.” This is the poem that came out.

I made some choices to get to this point. I gave up a lot, but that isn’t what I want to focus on. When I felt that I needed to start painting, I did. That was huge. It was listening. I started to meet people who listen to themselves. Following my passion, engaging my interests, has opened doors that I didn’t even know where there.

My wife and I were living in Long Beach and I was building my handyman business. It was happening, and I was enjoying the process. We lived next to the beach and life seemed to be moving forward. One day I started painting. We picked up sea shells, seaweed, sand, and plywood from back alleys and created things. But she wasn’t happy in the city.

Long Beach promenade for the Facebook page I started there called Long Beach Rocks.

We took a walk in Topanga Canyon in L.A. She told me she wanted to move to our now home, Harbin Hot Springs. She had lived here before and felt a calling to return to it. I remember walking and being so angry, but I didn’t really know at what. There was a part of me that was listening, the same part that told me to paint. “Told” isn’t quite the word. I just had a feeling and followed it. She has been my muse, and here she was sharing with me.

Seven months after moving to Long Beach we were moving again. I had a lot of doubts. I hadn’t had a “job” for a long time. I had opinions about where we were going. But the truth is, she needed to move, and I didn’t need to stay in Long Beach. I trusted my feelings about what she needed. I was humbled. I didn’t have a clue. I had let go of a life and an identity and felt like a baby taking it’s first steps.

Discovering water color and gardening in Long Beach.

It was a move that opened me up to myself. Maybe that isn’t quite right. Moves don’t really do that, but where you are coming from when you make them does. I had surrendered, I felt, I feel like I am floating down this river that although I don’t know where it is going—still, the view is fine from here. So here we are, back in the country, living in a community. I have time to create.

Creating, painting, is changing me.

My sight is different. I take walks and have moments when I look around me and see things as lines and shapes without ascribing them to their form and function. Walking the other day, I felt like I had visited an art gallery. There is this feeling of deep connection when words and memory are not necessary to experience what is in front of you.

I ascribe this experience to being an artist, yet it really is an art of living, a creative process we all are on some level engaged in. I have this feeling that it doesn’t matter what is in front of you if you are grateful. And I don’t mean saying the words, I mean really grateful. From the inside, without attachment. I am not always, and that hurts. And that is human.

A project I have been using to entertain myself recently is interviewing other artists, and listening to how they describe their experiences. It is such a trip to hear their point of view and experiences. They all describe creating as this mystery, giving birth from a place that they know is there but couldn’t draw you a map to it. It is someplace we all have to discover inside ourselves.

I don’t believe people when they tell me they are not artists. Who decides that? Creating is creating, no matter what comes out. The more we get out of the way by not judging, the more we get to experience the art of living.

I have created a life where I walk and ride my bike down that road to a community that has welcomed us with open arms. We spend time with friends. Sama sings, I paint, and we both write. Our friends are poets, painters, musicians, ministers, and wise elders. It is not paradise, and there are days I have lost hair, there are assholes like everywhere else, and sometimes I am one of them. Yet there is one sign that tells me I am going in the right direction—I am happy.

Thanks for being here. I am.

Right now, you can find my artwork on Facebook at GeoArt,

You can also find our artist’s group on Facebook at ArtisTribe, a group of artists supporting artists.

My interviews with other artists is on my other blog, “ArtisTribe Interviews”

You can reach me at geoart108@gmail.com

All my best! Geo

What You Think is of Paramount Importance

I am a middle aged man going through a transition from a life that was about pleasing others to a life that is about following my own heart and dreams. I am using writing and art to get to know myself again. This is my musings on this ordinary journey

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I recently posted a blog about hanging my first show with my friend David Agasi, a photographer. I was sharing about how it felt to both have people appreciate our art and also have criticism. I got some interesting feedback, especially from a friend from L.A. who is a successful artist, Mark Beam. He wrote:

“good one! to the question “what other people think”, no it doesn’t matter what other people think…but what you think is of paramount importance.

I thought to myself, “Wow, he must have heard something in what I wrote that he felt moved to share this.” If you knew Mark, you would know he is a keen observer of human nature, up front about how he sees things, and a very kind, thoughtful person. He has also sold artwork in the L.A. area to many people in Hollywood—a very successful artist who never went to school. This gave me pause.

What makes an artist successful? What is success? I know Mark did it his own way, and what followed was a career that he really enjoyed.

I had the good fortune to connect with Maryna Butenko, another successful artist out of the L.A. area. She is a very generous person, and came down to Long Beach to connect with my wife and I after I shared a little about my transition and desire to explore sharing my art. She explained that for her, selling art is very simple. You are not selling art to 10,000 people—you only need to sell to one. It is an emotional decision. People don’t need art. Someone connects and feels it. That is it. She is intense and dedicated to her work. She is committed to her sincere expression. I can honestly say from that one talk, followed by some business direction she gave me, helped to light my fire, and for this I will always be grateful.

They are very different people, yet the common denominator is they do their own thing. Both of them have a strong sense of self and don’t care about what other people think. This, in part is what made them successful, not just as artists, but in life. It is really a life’s lesson we all face, that if you do what you love, the rest will follow. If you ignore your heart’s passion, you suffer.

The last year was a real transition. I left a whole life I had built to start something new, and had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Still don’t. At times I thought I had really blown it. I had to love myself through a lot of doubt and judgment around my choices and past. Yes, eventually I returned to the place you can’t change the past, and yes, eventually I got to you have to lift yourself up by your bootstraps, but saying these clichés is one thing, and the experience of them is quite another.

All I really can say about it is that I felt the urge to create art again, and followed that feeling. All my challenges came right along with this and I have been using my art practice to face the same issues that shadowed me in my other life. Only now I am in a different place. I am not sure how I got here, except by listening–listening to my partner, to friends, to life, and most importantly, I am learning to listen to myself. I wouldn’t trade my lessons for anything.

I didn’t think this show would make it up. I had 3 months to prepare, and during that time my wife was ill for 3 weeks, I was still moving back and forth from Sacramento, learning a new job in a new place with a completely new set of people, and at the start, had none of my tools or a place to work. But I did it, and the show is absolutely beautiful to me. I love walking in to the restaurant and just looking around at my paintings and David’s photographs. The feedback we are getting is that it is striking, beautiful, well presented, and very professional. I love that. And I already new that.

These lessons are powerful, because they speak to a spiritual, or at least human challenge we all face: how to live our passion without attaching ourselves to the outcome and killing the fire that fuels it. What I keep coming back to is, live the way you want to live and allow what follows that living to give back to you. This is a life long practice, And right now, practicing art and sharing it is providing the mirror for this beautiful lesson.

Making a commitment to open the doors now means some have to shut. So with that, I am changing the title of this blog from “Am I An Artist?” to “I Am An Artist.” Rock and roll.

If you are interested in some really cool artwork, and even better, really sincere and genuine people check out:

Mark Beam @ markbeam.com

He will make you laugh!

Maryna Butenko @ https://www.facebook.com/MarynaButenko

and http://www.marynabutenko.com/

Right now, you can find my artwork on Facebook at GeoArt:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/GeoArt/930723953645319

You can also find our artist’s group on Facebook at ArtisTribe, a group of artists supporting artists:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/667676920008348/

Coming soon…interviews with artists, websites, and a whole lot more. Mostly because I like people and art. Their cool.  Check out my other blog, ArtisTribe Interviews @ https://artistribemagazine.wordpress.com/

Best! Geo

Those Egotistical Artists

I am a middle aged man going through a transition from a life that was about pleasing others to a life that is about following my own heart and dreams. I am using writing and art to get to know myself again. This is my musings on this ordinary journey.

Why is it that in exploring art, we get into the deepest places in ourselves that language can’t always touch directly, and stimulate our egos through praise and criticism at the same time. Is it okay to paint, draw, and write—let it all hang out there—and love the attention? Is it okay to create and not give a shit what people think? Is it possible to find a different way to be with criticism that doesn’t crush me?

I created a Facebook Page to expose my artwork. Tonight I hang my first show. It has been over a year getting here. I wanted to be an art major in college, but I wasn’t in a place to handle the criticism. There was work I had to do on myself first. At least that is how it went.

There is a point in everyone’s life when you don’t have it in you to live your life for others, when you have to take that step into yourself and through caution to the wind. The vehicle for my expression of this right now is my creating. I paint and write to get to know myself. But what about when I share with others?

I was really afraid of putting my work out there and receiving nothing. That would almost be worse than someone hating it. There have been baby steps–couple of friends over, a poetry reading here and there. I started talking to a friend who went to art school, and he shared with me about critiques.

Risk. Somewhere along the way something snapped.   When this happened, it was hard to understand what was going on with me. It reminded me of when my father passed and I went through a whole series of emotions, and suffered at first, feeling crushed by the emotions. Then I went to hospice, and spent time in groups finding out my feelings were normal.

Well so is a midlife transition. When my life brought me to my knees, at first I thought I didn’t have a second act, that this might be the end. Doesn’t that sound kind of melodramatic? Yet we all face something like this, maybe multiple times over our lives. At the beginning of this step for me, I started creating, and this became my refuge. I started to enjoy the person I was meeting in those dark places where color and image flow. This may pass someday, like many things from my former life did.

Right now I am enjoying the attention. I don’t always enjoy the criticism. They both have lessons for me and are important, though. To put yourself out there is to learn how to live with that voice that says you are the shit or a shit. That voice is not going away, but learning to live with it so I can be as authentic as I can has become my new challenge.

It feels good to get attention because I am allowing myself to engage and be engaged with myself and to be mirrored by others. Criticism is difficult to take in the same way a deep stretch is, it can be painful but allows you to open to a different place.

Are artists egotistical? I guess to answer that I would have to identify myself as an artist. I do, in that I am participating with creating my life. It is the way I roll. And yes, the ego is as involved in art as any endeavor. The process teaches us to be more real and enjoy the ride. If that is egotistical, then I am an egomaniac baby!

Please check out my Facebook Page: GeoArt,and tell me how good everything is.  Then like it.

Also, join my online Facebook Group Page, ArtisTribe.A place for artists to support artists.

You can contact me at gloveandlight@gmail.com. I would like to hear from people discovering themselves through art and sharing it!

Best to you all!

Geo

Learn to Crawl

I loved to draw as a kid.  I didn’t know anything about what it meant to do “bad” art or “good” art.  There was just playing around.  When I was in third grade (I remember it was third grade because I had a serious crush on my teacher, Ms. Plowman.)  The kids in my class started rating who was the best artist in the class.  That is when I learned my art could be judged by others.

Judgement, I later learned, stops everything.  I am, a 42 year old man who has picked up the pen and paint brush after going through a mid-life change.  I’ve felt insecure and vulnerable.  I’ve wondered if I had a second act left in me.  I picked started creating again because I had to. I needed to express myself to learn about myself.  It didn’t matter if that expression looked like doodling, poems, talking to a friend, or speaking up to a boss.  All that shit that i stuffed down needed to come out, and it was either going to come out with my cooperation, or I was going to vomit it all over my world.

My first drawing a year or so ago was a doodle in a notebook at a yoga retreat.  It felt good to express things that sometimes can’t be expressed in words.  I was in pain and needed to find that part of myself that could carry me through it.  And there it was on that piece of paper–yellow figures standing around in a circle–practically stick figures.

The thing about creating is that it is what it is.  I know that sounds meaningless, but it’s been important to me.  I found this list being shared around the internet that describes the process of creating.  It goes like this:

Creative Process

1.  This is awesome

2.  This is tricky

3.  This is shit

4.  I am shit

5.  This might be ok

6.  This is awesome

Even though this process has numbers and a linear order, that was meaningless to me.  What I realized is that you could be anywhere in that process, and when you are starting with I am a shit, you might not be able to start at all.

Life throws you down.  Staying down is an option until it isn’t.  I had someone in my life that I wanted to live for when I didn’t want to live for myself.  That was the start of art for me.  Somewhere along the way it wasn’t enough to live for someone else, I had to live for myself.  And it wasn’t enough to just live.  I wanted to live and love living.  Don’t we all deep down want that?  And I wanted to find that person inside, that process that could take me there.  I started drawing and painting, but the truth is it could be anything.  For me art is really the art of living, and the art of living is using what you have in your life to get to know yourself anew everyday.

Those yellow stick figures evolved into complex designs, stories, and blobs of plaster and paint.  What I discovered about myself is that if you think you suck at something, it isn’t because you suck, it is because some part of you thinks that you suck.  They are not the same thing.  Drawing and painting and singing and dancing are for everyone, not just a special few that the world recognizes for fantastic ability.  Why bother doing anything if there is someone who can do it better, right?  I have found the only reason that can really engage me, especially when there is no inspiration, is that it will teach me something about myself.  Who better to learn about?  Who do I have more access to, spend more time with than me. The more I learn about myself, the better my life works, even when it is hard.

Right now, yes, I want to make beautiful art that people enjoy.  I just read something recently, a post by Rob Brezsny I think, where he was describing how to really engage your projects you have to treat them like children.  Well I want to encourage this same kind of loving parental role in raising your creations.  Don’t yell at your babies about walking when they are learning to crawl.