My first ever abstract painting. I’m not sure what to think, but I’m allowing myself to just ponder what is and what unfolded. And the thing is, I’m just not quite sure. So as one of my good friends taught me and sometimes has to remind me to do…I’m simmering.

I’m taking part in an online class called The Sacred Circle. I was drawn to the title of the class as anything sacred with the word circle usually gets my attention.  🙂 I wasn’t too keen about the abstract part of it but was willing to give it a shot.

I’m not sure abstract painting is my thing. Though I do love the colors I used. But I kept feeling like I wanted to make something I could recognize. Like a bird, or a flower, or something than just splotches of paint. What’s the point of abstract I kept wondering?

I felt uncomfortable. I even started over after I had a bunch of color on the canvas. I just wasn’t feeling it so I put two coats of gesso over it and started again.

I posted my painting in the private Facebook group for the class and the teacher, Denise, said, “Abstract asks us to let go and create.”

Another student said, ” Don’t think too much, enjoy the feeling of it. Even if it feels a bit strange in the beginning.”

Two powerful statements that not only apply to painting but to anything new we try or a challenge we are working through.

I thought about the writing of my latest memoir. How I had to learn to let go and feel my way through the experience of what I was going through last year and working through a wound that needed to be healed. And then I went through it again as I wrote my book. It was, at times, uncomfortable in the middle of it all, both the experience and the writing of it. 

But what I was going through, I’d come to understand, wasn’t something I could logically find an answer for. It was by feeling my way through it even when it felt incredibly strange, painful, and lonely that I now find myself in this new space of freedom within. It no longer feels strange but welcoming as I enjoy this new me that I’ve evolved into.

As I’ve been writing this post, I’ve glanced up a few times at my painting hanging in front of me. I feel it growing on me. I’m actually feeling some delight looking at it. I see the joy in the colors. I feel a swirl of excitement that I gave this a try.

I feel myself letting go of that darn perfectionist part of me. So perhaps this is what it’s all about. 

The definition of abstract: existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence.

This makes sense. I see what I need to see and feel from the painting, and those who look at it will see and feel what they need to. There is nothing concrete in this painting and only perspective.

Nothing to prove. But to just let go and create and then take part in the evolving of whatever its meant to be.

Hmmmmm, perhaps I do like abstract after all.  🙂

XO,

Barbara

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