Tallulah and Georgia LOVE their new kitchen!
There are many versions of this “Trust The Process” quote and I hate to say that I can’t remember who wrote this particular one but it’s the one I have remembered for more than 20 years. Trust the Process is good advice, but add “It’s Larger Than You,” and you put yourself in your place. Who are you to worry about the quality of your art? Really, your job is to keep doing it. And to know that every single day there will be mistakes. And you have to love them anyway.
I intend to share my process with you, to let you see that despite it all I just keep going. Never mind that I didn’t start drawing seriously until just before my 59th birthday a little over a year and a half ago. I have been so in love with the process since the get-go after waiting over 50 years to finally get going that ding dong dagnabbit nothing was going to stop me now! I think it took me 6 decades to realize that the process is indeed larger than me, and when you get that, ego gets drop kicked out of the picture.
There are so many mistakes in this picture that I could, if I were in a different frame of mind, cringe, but I am just too in love with the whole thing. Tallulah and Georgia are family now. How could I possibly not keep drawing them every day, developing them as real beings with each stroke, drawing them a little better each day, and in loving them, mistakes and all, I love myself a little more too. I am less afraid to be imperfect, I am more courageous for continuing on under all circumstances, if I don’t make a kerfuffle over every little oopsie daisy stroke, not to mention my new drawing pen with, ahem, permanent ink that ran all into the watercolors as soon as I started. And you know what? While the mistakes are obvious believe it or not they become part of what is and make this drawing/painting just exactly what it is supposed to be in it’s own wabi sabi way.
This is a little painting full of mistakes and absolutely perfect to me. It is all about compassion and kindness, toward my art, toward myself, toward my life. Truly, how could I not embrace it all? I would have a pretty unhappy life if I couldn’t just (if I were able) do cartwheels all over the house with joy just because I finished this picture. And I finish everything, no matter what my one rule from the get go is that I don’t get to stop or do anything else until I finish it. It is a spiritual practice. Carry through, carry on, trust that it is a very important part of the journey and one you could not continue on with dignity and honor without finishing, and appreciating every single step along the way. With every single mishap, still, I trust the process. It’s larger than me. The process is my teacher. And I am happier, more at peace, and in a better place in my life than I have been in so long, even long before the fire, that I don’t know how to tell you.
Take one thing, any thing, something you’ve always wanted to do, or maybe started and stopped many times and lost your nerve. Take it, and begin by vowing to yourself that this time you will do it, and every step along the way you will accept the gifts given you that day no matter how the work turned out. The process has enormous power, and it is so much larger than you that you will never understand it, not really, and you don’t have to.
It is with Goethe that I sing out to you, bursting with joy and love and hope and promise…
Until one is committed
There is hesitancy, the chance to draw back
Always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and Creation)
There is one elementary truth
The ignorance which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
That the moment that one definitely commits ones self
Then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
That would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision
Raising in one’s favor all manner
Of unforeseen incidents and meetings
And material substance
Which no one could have dreamt
Would have come your way.
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Begin it now.
I am singing, I am laughing, I am bursting with joy and I am asking you to join me, please, will you? Do this with me, begin it now. Isn’t it time? Whatever it is that you have been waiting to do, the thing that your soul calls for, begin it, comment after these posts and let me know how you are doing and I will answer you. I have also committed to answering, individually, those who take up the challenge and comment here. There is strength in numbers. Let’s rock this thing!
With love and absolute belief in you and in me. We can DO this!
i don’t see a dang-blanged thing wrong with this portrait. how darn spunky is she? how horn rimmed glasses messy hair cool? how cuddleable is that doggie? and i love the little teapot and flowers display overhead. catch that tiny dimple in talullah’s chin! and the colors make me want to dance and sing, as instructed in your blog. no one could look at this painting and not smile!! or to put it positively, anyone who looks at this picture will smile!!! carry on, dear artist of the heart, of the wompy and jiggy truth of your soul
xo
ka
Ha ha ha Ka your words made me smile from ear to ear and then laugh out loud. What joy Tallulah and Georgia are bringing me and that they can make others smile too is a MAJOR bonus. Thank you for your wonderful note! 🙂 <3
Love, love, love this one – and Talullah and Georgia. It’s a message we all need to hear repeatedly: Don’t hold back. Get it done. Keep on keeping on. Let the love inside spill onto the canvas, into the dance, right through the photograph, inside the words. Keep it coming, Maitri!
Oh Cathryn honey THANK YOU!!!!! Your words are like a magic carpet ride into the land of Bliss! These wonderful beings coming to life are just so full of joy I sometimes laugh as I am drawing them. Thank you for so often sharing here. It means the world to me. So much love to you…. <3
You speak my heart.
I so struggle with my paintings and them not looking the way I want them to look. It is difficult for me to let go of what I think they should be and allow them to be what they are. Not to mention that this obsession with the outcome ruins the whole process for me.
Thank you for sharing, Maitri. This is really inspiring <3
You are so sweet Corinna. Maybe this will help…
I don’t know if your mother was anything like mine but something was always wrong, my hair was wrong or my clothes were wrinkly or I ought to wear makeup and then I might be pretty or or or…. She never accepted me just for who I was. What if you look like your paintings in that way, of open hearted love just for who they are. What I am seeing is when I just love them with all my heart, even though they didn’t turn out like I’d hoped or thought they should I really believe they are just who they are supposed to be in that moment, they teach me something just because they are who they are, and further creation flows much more easily from an open hearted loving place of acceptance.
Look at each painting and say “I love you SO much, you are just perfect!” And know in your heart that it is true just in that very moment. And you will approach the next painting so much more relaxed, and I think we sooner reach what our heart desires when we love it ALL all along the way.
Or so I believe.
And so much love to you dearheart…
I was lucky with my mom, although there were other people who did this occasionally.
But I am getting your point and I think you are right. I will try this next week. Maybe I will paint tomorrow. I will let you know how it went.
Thanks so much for caring and giving me advice <3
Oh yes just keep painting. I do all my drawing and painting in my journal now because they are preliminary pieces to what will be in the book. Soon I will have to start doing the little paintings in a sketchbook because I’m working on the book in earnest now. I draw and paint and then I write on the next page and something might bleed through. Last night I did a drawing with my new Rotring pen that is supposed to have permanent black ink and as soon as I started to paint the ink bled into the painting so it looks all mucky in spots. I wanted to quit but I wouldn’t let myself. Finish the painting, bless it for it’s lessons, love Tallulah and little Georgia, and move on. It builds a firm foundation to stand on, like painting over the compost heap, each one gets richer and stronger because of what came before. Or so I believe…
I just don’t see any imperfections in this painting! It is bursting with energy, with life, and with the joy that your words also convey! How could it possibly get any better than that?
Sweet Dara, it just COULDN’T get any better no matter what because the act of creation itself is just so much joy. There are so many people who say they “want” to be artists but they can’t. Well, in my opinion, and I really believe this, EVERYBODY is an artist, the can’t and won’t have to do with someone’s ability to let go and just DO it. I have only been drawing for a year and a half. I was just shy of my 59th birthday when I started. And I could bemoan all the lost years but I won’t do that either because all we EVER has is NOW and now is just fine by me.
Emerson said, “Do the thing and you will have the power.” And so it is… 🙂
I really love this painting — the exuberance and color (and life) just radiate from it. I think it’s perfect just the way it is.
And your words about process — so so true, and some processes are more fraught with emotions than others. Tiptoeing back into art (drawing, watercolor, etc), from a journey that has taken me through gardening and design, photography, and writing, has been interesting. For me, I’ve really needed the nudge of classes to get myself past the “staring at the art supplies” stuckness, and still haven’t just sat down and done any sort of drawing on “my own” — although I am finding that I’m writing and posting much more frequently again! And I’m starting to read in venues that I haven’t for years — memoirs, nature essays, etc. All part of the process, I think.
Thanks for a wonderful post.
Darling Lisa… and the thing is, the more you do it, the more you are drawn to do it. Work breeds work when it is work of the heart. I find myself itching to draw and sometimes it is like the carrot before the rabbit, I will hurry up and get done what I need to get done so I can bet back to journal and pens and paper and inks and…. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…. Keep at it darling girl and keep checking in and letting us know how it goes! 😀
Maitri, thanks for sharing the fragrance of your thoughts with those beautiful colors. That’s what will make this and every winter colorful !!
Thank you so much dearheart . I can’t live without color! My house looks like an Easter Egg Basket, every room a different bright color. 🙂 And my art is full of color. It makes me joyful to make art bursting with color. It is a real spirit lifter!
Thanks for stopping in!