It Feels Like Home

Self Portrait Thursday 10/18/07, originally uploaded by livefunky.

Oh wait! It IS home! Here is me standing in the studio with some works in progress behind me. Have I mentioned how happy I am to have a studio in my own backyard? Have I? Have I?!

Well if I haven't (and I'm pretending that I haven't) let me tell you - I am SOOOOO happy! I could cry I'm so happy. I could jump for joy, and I DO, I'm so happy!

It just feels so right.

I brought some canvases out from the house today that were hanging around as "supposedly" completed paintings, but each canvas was missing that spark, so I decided, instead of buying new canvases, I'd take these guys to the next level. One of them I am calling the "cursed canvas" because it's taken on so many lives and just never, ever seems to work, no matter what direction I try to take it. Maybe tomorrow I will do a chant to remove the curse "please allow this canvas to purge itself of any negative energy and take on it's true, beautiful form". hahhaha - no but seriously, i think i might do that.

Maybe the problem is that I always go to that painting first when I start my day's session of painting. The first movements/strokes are always the most stilted and disconnected. For the past few days though, I wake up wanting to transform that canvas into something special. Each day it changes - each day it stays "blah". I should ignore it for a while and THEN do a chant to remove the curse! Yeah, that's what I'll do. (If you didn't know already, now you are certain that I am crazy - I will not dispute you).

Fortunately, some real winners are emerging, and filling me with excitement for this groove I am only beginning to connect to. The groove of waking, going online and/or the post office, then walking out to paint for the better part of the day.

This space I have... I know how lucky I am. I keep thinking of Virginia Woolf's A Room Of One's Own... I've got it. Now what am I going to do with it? The good thing is, that question doesn't give me fear or doubt or anguish in any way - only a full body/soul/mind thrill that I can't, and don't want to, shake.

My gratitude goes out to all forces, here on Earth and beyond, that have helped me get to this place in my life and career (which absolutely merge into one). And if I could offer anything to an aspiring artist today, it is the belief that if this is what you really want, you can make it happen.

Love. Live. Make Art. Make Peace. :)