Getting out of the home and my head
It has been quite some time since I've written on a public blog! I started one a few years back on blogspot under the title Zoetic, but it's been a minute since I've touched it. I love the idea of blogs and love reading what other people are up to in theirs...let's see if I can integrate writing in my own blog more frequently into my life. I write all the time in journals, so it sounds like it won't be tooo hard of a transition!
I've spent so much time alone in my studio and working for Bioworld creating graphics for the apparel industry that I've felt strongly for some time that it's waaay past due for me to go out into the world and start hanging out with other artists to talk with them, connect, be inspired, see how they live their lives and what they are up to. So lately, over the past few weeks, I have been getting involved in live painting events! This terrified me at first, but that's all the more reason for me to continue doing it! Actually, it's still a bit scary. As an artist and a bit of a perfectionist, I'm so critical of myself and my own procedures and outcomes that why in the world would I want to display the very thing I'm critical of and the manner in which I create the things I am critical of? The little voices in my head (FEAR) tell me I'm not ready yet, I'm not good enough yet, I don't paint fast enough, I don't spend enough time in the week drawing and painting yet, I don't want to be seen or heard, who do I think I am??
The older I get and the deeper I allow myself to develop as well as really get to know and listen to myself, to pay attention to my intuition, what my body tells me and how I want to progress my life, the easier it is to FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY. Everyone has those little voices inside--it's part of our interesting and complex psychological makeup as human beings. I have been choosing lately to observe my own feelings and behaviors from almost an outsiders perspective...to know that I am NOT those feelings--I allow them to come, I allow myself to feel them fully but not to let them stop me. In feeling them fully, they tend to warp and change and exit my body which helps rather than hinders. Additionally, what's the worse that can happen anyway? I create a shitty painting, but no one is going to remember and think about it and point at me, laughing anyway....the only one affected is ME and I have been through much much much worse in my life for a shitty painting to stop me :) plus it all chalks up to those 10,000 hours of experience everyone has to go through anyway....and so far it pushes me to paint faster and make more strokes that actually count...
And you know what? It turns out live painting is SO MUCH FUN!!! The people involved are super enlightened it seems (so far at least), there's always great djs playing in the background, I get to meet other artists and tons of people, I'm usually dancing and painting at the same time--feeling the fear and doing it anyway has paid off--again! Out of the three times I've live painted, I've only scraped the painting once.
My first event was for the DoArt Foundation at Angel City Brewery for Heritage Day. Super fun scene with food trucks, lots of art and vendors, some other live painters, bands, flowing beer, etc. My next event was a huge one--Lightning in A Bottle Music and Art Festival which is a camping event I have gone to for the past three years featuring electronic music, bands, yoga, african dance, tantra classes, organic food, drumming and sooo much more. I was incredibly honored to have been chosen this year as one of the 50 featured artists painting, including artists like Mear One, Van Saro, John Park, Angelina Christina and a ton more-- 16,000 people were in attendance and I got to paint as long as I wanted for four days straight--which was absolutely amazing!
I will be at ILLUMINATE June 14, 2014 painting from 9pm to 4am. Michael Pukac who I briefly met at LIB will be one of the other featured artists and he is a PRO at this live painting stuff. I got to watch him in action at LIB and he is also teaching a class at ROAM in Topanga that I will definitely be attending coming up shortly. I can't wait to hear what he has to share in Topanga.
