Bubbling Up: The Creative Process Acrylics 18x24 |
How quickly the world, the whole world, can change. A microscopic virus has sent us separately into self-isolation and solitude while creating a global, world wide connection!
New times call for new ways!
Sheltering in place, as we will be if we follow Dr.Fachi's advice, must be the new way, the way to "flatten the curve." But as individuals, we also need ways to handle this new-to-us isolation and seclusion.
Time to nurture our creativity! How does the creative process work? Where does it come from? Do we all have creativity?How do we find it? How do we feed it?
Bubbling Up is my visual answer to how the creative process works.The universe provides our brain and being with myriad images, events, happenings, stirred around by more of the same, bubbling like a great broth until those bubbles burst forth...aha! BINGO...OMG! in some artistic form... visual products, music, song, dance, poetry, theater, other modalities not yet even imagined. What a magical, marvelous process. We all have it, though perhaps hidden. We can all use it!
For some of us, however, creativity has been pushed further down into the mire of our everyday living. Our society has squelched it, or we ourselves claim that lack of time, energy and/or money have set boundaries we can't break through. Pushing Boundaries was my initial attempt to visualize a way to confront the societies and/or the selves that set uncommonly restrictive boundaries. Unfortunately, even as I painted away, COVID-19 was sending us to solitary confinement. The painting was a total blob. I saw an enveloping, attacking dragon; a distressed brain; haze, fog; unknown onslaught and no solutions. I relegated the painting to a dark corner.
Returned from a short excursion to Fairbanks, AK where I roomed with three other women from across the country, I was again staring at Pushing Boundaries thinking, Enough! Time to act! Destroy it? Paint over it? and also wondering about my three adventure partners. We'd all come through Seattle and had been home long enough to finish our self quarantines. How were they? Coincidentally, I received a text message from Miyuki related to the trip we'd shared. Soon Carol and Candy joined. We texted intermittently through the evening, sharing our separate and very different experiences related to COVID-19. The text exchanges, warm words and good memories, were stirring my creative broth and moving my paint brushes. Between texts I returned to Pushing Boundaries adding golden details and a trillion points of glistening starlight, a new vision, a successful makeover. Thank you, Miyuki, Carole and Candy. We were Reaching Out, in spite of our differences, our distances,
New times call for new ways!
Sheltering in place, as we will be if we follow Dr.Fachi's advice, must be the new way, the way to "flatten the curve." But as individuals, we also need ways to handle this new-to-us isolation and seclusion.
Time to nurture our creativity! How does the creative process work? Where does it come from? Do we all have creativity?How do we find it? How do we feed it?
Bubbling Up is my visual answer to how the creative process works.The universe provides our brain and being with myriad images, events, happenings, stirred around by more of the same, bubbling like a great broth until those bubbles burst forth...aha! BINGO...OMG! in some artistic form... visual products, music, song, dance, poetry, theater, other modalities not yet even imagined. What a magical, marvelous process. We all have it, though perhaps hidden. We can all use it!
Pushing Boundaries Acrylic |
Returned from a short excursion to Fairbanks, AK where I roomed with three other women from across the country, I was again staring at Pushing Boundaries thinking, Enough! Time to act! Destroy it? Paint over it? and also wondering about my three adventure partners. We'd all come through Seattle and had been home long enough to finish our self quarantines. How were they? Coincidentally, I received a text message from Miyuki related to the trip we'd shared. Soon Carol and Candy joined. We texted intermittently through the evening, sharing our separate and very different experiences related to COVID-19. The text exchanges, warm words and good memories, were stirring my creative broth and moving my paint brushes. Between texts I returned to Pushing Boundaries adding golden details and a trillion points of glistening starlight, a new vision, a successful makeover. Thank you, Miyuki, Carole and Candy. We were Reaching Out, in spite of our differences, our distances,
Reaching Out Acrylic 36x36 |
For our own creativity, we must also recognize and nurture our connecting relationships to all things and to the Earth that binds us together. It's a complex situation, but not without inspiration and hope if we look for them.
In your present solitude and isolation, explore your creativity and be grateful for all the ways you can connect without inviting COVID-19 to your party. We have a lot to learn from this experience. STAY WELL, STAY CONNECTED but KEEP UP THE CAUTIONS.
If you're in Freedom NH visit Freedom Gallery for Art and Spirit, Freedom, NH, 8 Elm Street
(Open by appointment and most weekends)
Email barbaramcevoy@me.com
(Open by appointment and most weekends)
Email barbaramcevoy@me.com