Eat, Pray, Love, Create

It can be wonderful when everything in the universe lines up right and the work just flows. The art imagined in my mind comes to physical reality with little effort, as if it were intended to exist at that moment and I’m just the conduit. Yes, that actually does happen sometimes. An example is one of my first tree paintings. On that particular day I felt like working in a different room than the dining room that I normally painted in at the time. For whatever reason (the new setting, the lighter-colored and brighter room) I felt incredibly inspired. The painting came together from start to finish in a short afternoon. It has an energy many people can feel. And it is that energy that seemed to work through me to bring it to life on the canvas that day. Interestingly, it’s the only painting in my home that has always hung in the same place. (I tire of my surroundings and like to move things around a lot). It seems to like it there… I mean, I seem to like it there.

Today my mind has too many distractions to connect to that energy, or anything resembling it for that matter. If this all sounds crazy to you (or crazy interesting), take a look at this video of a talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love.


At least as a visual artist if I ever get to catch that creative energy by the tail, most won’t recognize that everything’s backwards! I’m always motivated by her talk.

Now, back to work. ;-)