December 30, 2022 Weekly Musings

Musings:

Visions and Visions for Freedom

Featured image: At Peace

The vision of freedom is complicated. There is a freedom that is a tad constrained in order to allow for the freedom of everyone. They are accomplished without force.

Unconstrained freedom is not unlimited freedom. Unconstrained freedom can cause chaos. I have found in my working towards freedom that the arts allow me the unconstrained freedom and chaos that some would find annoying. This makes them attempt to make me follow the rules of art. I hear comments like, “But that isn’t the way it is done. That doesn’t really look like a tree. That is a mess.”

What happens when they try and constrain my freedom in art is that they shut down my voice. They don’t let me speak, and they don’t allow themselves to possibly think differently without force.

I have had those statements spoken to me many times since I have become a bonafide artist. But, let me relate to you an example that might be easier to understand about thinking differently. In 3rd or 4th grade one of the requirements to move forward was to memorize your multiplication tables. Well, I memorized 2's, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s and 10’s. I told the teacher that the rest could be done with addition and subtraction. My dad taught me that. He was an engineer. He said that this system would at least allow me to go to the next grade. Yes, the teacher even threatened me that she would not pass me on to the next grade. It was slower but it worked. (On a side note, this system is a problem solving system, and is how math is taught today – it encourages – thinking). This is thinking differently without hurting another. While the teacher tried force and fear, I was determined that my system of multiplying worked. The teacher reluctantly passed me to the next grade.

I also in the word game won first place that year. It was also the year that sputnik was launched. We all think differently. We just need to learn to respect how others learn and live.

Visions and Self

Featured image: Visions Are Like Maps

If you can identify your visions, then you can identify yourself.  How you visualize yourself is correlated with how you  think. Thinking for yourself’ is the key here. This includes your morals, your knowledge, what kind of power you think you have and that others have, your freedom and whether you think you have it and how you work for it.

There are excellent examples of those who know themselves that you may have heard of.  I have talked about them many times in my musings. Mother Teresa, Elvis, Elan Musk, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, to list a few.  They all are as different as can be – but they followed their spirit and lived accordingly.

Unfolding Life

Featured image: Birthday Cake 2023

Life is the unfolding of identity and creativity.  Our life’s journey is growth and discovery of who we are and just how creative we can become.  There needs to be a grace-such-ness in this journey, a simple elegance of movement, and the ability to do honor to ourselves and our lives.  

My wish for you all in 2023 is for you to find this grace-such-ness and the unfolding and creativity in your life.

Digital Age

Featured image: Rainbow Windows

Have we in the digital age forfeited patience and attention to beauty, creative emergence and delight of discovery?

I know that when I paint and something emerges from the color, there is a sense of wonder and delight that I experience that is glorious.  I am not sure this can happen with digital art. I'm just not sure.  Why,? There is the tactical sense of creating that is lost. There is the space of the image maker or craftsman/artist and the space of the app writer.  I'm just not sure it can happen.

New Works

Spot of Red

Little Bird

Birthday Cake

The Pie

Poetry, Haikus, Limericks and Musings

 Time

Featured image: Old Growth IV

Time makes us old.  Eternity keeps us young.  Mister Eckhart

Stillness of Stone

Featured image: Cairn

Microcosm of Life

Wind Song

Featured image: As The Wind Blows