My Mind is Totally Free

I went back to painting last night after a few days of not doing any art (besides music). When you are in a flow with things, and you step out of the flow to innocently just do other things, BEWARE! Beware of the amnesia that comes over you, like a comfortable blanket. It makes you forget that the flow is SO EXCELLENT and TOTALLY EASY to step back into. After two nights out doing music, I was excited to get back into the studio. Then on Wednesday, I put it off for grocery shopping and discussions about 80's movie stars. Last night, I felt myself putting it off again and when that old, "But I am tired..." thought came in, I remembered what Mike Filan would say: F%*$ I am too tired! I am doing this FOR ME! So, I went reluctantly into the studio, and yes, I know, it was totally good. At 10:00, Graham was trying to get me to settle down into bed with a movie, but I was TOO WIRED.

I have been having a lot of breakthroughs lately--both artistically and life-wise (although the art is far outpacing the life part). I cannot stress what a FRICKN' MIRACLE this is. For three years before I moved here, I was a stopped-up wreck. I was in pain over a regrettably sunk music career, hated all my songs (if I wrote them at all), didn't finish anything (except journals and a calendar once a year). I tried everything to heal the block that had come over me. I read ALL of Julia Cameron's work: The Artist Way (twice), The Vein of Gold, The Right to Write, Pen and Paper. I read almost every SARK book. I read everybody else in the artistic/creative sphere: Anne Lamott, Brenda Ueland, Lynn Franks, Sabrina Ward Harrison, etc. I went for walks, I prayed, I went into therapy, I visited psychics, I tried different forms of art. I had some movement, but still felt powerless, at the mercy of this sense that I had been STOPPED DEAD.

Do I need to tell you that I was like a girl who had been badly badly hurt by her former lover, and who looked at each new venture or possability, hungrily, with this thought of ARE YOU GOING TO BE IT? ARE YOU GOING TO SAVE ME?

Then something happened. Part of it was the risk of moving to New York. Part of it was facing things I had been afraid of directly. I went on tour for the first time in 5 years. I played in the subway. I painted a room PINK. Then, inspired by other artists doing collage, I thought, "Well, I'll give it a try." It was like a lock on my brain finally snapped and the memory of art being FUN came washing over me. Suddenly, EVERYTHING had a use. I cut up old paintings that I hated, and hoards of paper goods that I'd been carrying with me for years. When that started to run out, I dusted off my old paints and started to create sheets of colored paper to cut up. Then I started drawing just for the fun of it and photocopying and using THOSE things. Then I wanted to go larger--so I bought a huge roll of paper and made a collage that was 3'x4'. I started telling myself: There is always more where that came from. Then, suddenly, other things started to shift. My songwriting started to come back. It was easier to play and to hear melodies. For the first time in years, I bought art supplies beyond the usual pens and journals.

Last night I was looking at the painting I started--it's big (for me)--at least 4 x 4. I'm trying out new things--new materials, like fabric and book pages. Six months ago, I would have NEVER dreamed I would be doing art at this rate and with such joy and abandon.

Over Christmas I was showing some of the early beginnings of my journal collages to my dad. Next to one of the collages I had written: My Mind Is Totally Free. He said, "That's a powerful statement." Having been totally shackled and even sick with the limits that I had created for myself, I couldn't agree more.

"To be able to give hope, you must experience what it is to have no hope."
-Nicola Amadora

I hope you have a weekend filled with such freedoms.