A decade ago, a voice in my head told me to go for a run. I tried ignoring it because that was an insane thought to me at the time but eventually I gave in and went for a run around my neighborhood, if for no other reason than to shut the voice up.
A few years after that voice showed up, I moved across the country to live near mountains, as trail running and hiking had become such a bedrock of my life.
Then not long after we moved, I read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. In that book she talked about how she saw her relationship with creativity as a relationship with something separate from herself, something she thinks of as THE MUSE.
At the time, I could connect with the idea of something outside of myself inspiring me because of my own experience with running. But I found it a fanciful notion in regards to being creative. An it must be nice sort of sentiment.
A couple of years after that and the first painting idea came through. As with running, I resisted at first, as that was an insane idea to me at the time but eventually I got it out of my head and on to paper, if for no other reason than to shut the voice up.
You see where I’m going with this.
There’s something out there-call it the muse or the divine or serendipity or whatever-that interacts with us. And in my experience, the more you pay attention, the more it shows up for you. Like it’s looking for a channel to get it’s ideas out from infinite formless space and into the reality of form and matter.
This time around she (I like to think of it as she) gave me an image of a digital collage. I don’t do digital collage.
But I stopped questioning her a long time ago so I created what I saw in my mind.
And then that sparked an idea for a painting that my husband thought was fruit.
But I kept adding a little more and a little more…
And then she was here, complete, this ode to a pacific northwest spring. With all the beauty and growth and LIFE springing from her just as it is springing from the earth around me.
Now there is obviously some thematic differences between the original digital creation and the painting but I know I couldn’t have gotten to the second one without the first one.
I don’t know why it’s like that, I just know that that’s how it is. And I love what that one weird idea sparked within me me. I always do.
So I’m going to keep listening to the voices in my head. And I think you should too. Who knows what sort of adventures and beauty and life they will lead you to.
‘Til next time~
Brandi