Everyday when I wake I start with gratitude. I'm grateful for my life and the gifts I have received. I make my coffee and relax. I take the time to meditate on the day ahead.
Next I survey my studio. I open the blinds and let the day enter my space. The sunlight slowly appears casting light on my space. I look at the array of paints and brushes nestled in old jars and paint dripped canvas that covers my table. This is where I began to to create. My creativity awakens and I start to imagine what that blank canvas will reveal.
I think that's my favorite part of my creative process is seeing that blank canvas. Before it intimidated me and I felt aniexty just trying to begin the process. Now that has changed. I see hope and promise in the blankness and feel excited at the creative potential I'm ready to unfurl like a sail on a boat ready to discover to new horizons.
Painting became, for me, a way to express myself and heal my sadness and anxiety. It also taught me to be myself and embrace my life all of its joy and even the sadness. Embracing it all helped me understand how to break out of my depressive funk and fill me with purpose. The feeling of preparing my palette and and putting that blank canvas on my easel is what fills me with excitement and optimism.
After the painting is complete I feel a sense of peace, even it isn't gallery worthy I painted my heart into the blankness and filled it with my imagination, my purpose, dreams and sometimes my nightmares.
The blankness is now gone on the canvas, as well as the blankness I once felt inside myself.
I wash my brushes and put away my paint securely in old refurbished china cabinet that once belonged to my grandmother. I sit back and look at what has become of that canvas and happy that lived to paint another day.
In my darkened studio I take one more glimpse of my creation as the moonlight sparkles on the wet paint and I'm content. Not because I think I painted some wonderful masterpiece, but because I painted away my insecurity, my fears close the blinds for the night and go to bed knowing I made it through the day with gratitude and healing art.
