Boldness – A Value Creating Life

Tools of the trade

September 27, 2015 Creative BuddhaLeave a comment

I have been recently looking into what computers can do for artists. And so, I looked at ‘Photoshop’ from Adobe. As an artist, I work in a similar way to Photoshop- altering colours, collage, cutting pasting, overlays of paint, etc.

Playing around with it, I discovered that how ever good computers are, they can’t replicate the human eye, hand and most importantly the ‘creative mistakes’. A little oddity, a tiny mistake, a misplaced drop of paint- these bring humanity to the work. As the architect, Michael Graves wrote in the New York Times, “Drawings express the interaction of our minds, eyes and hands…I have a real purpose in making each drawing, either to remember something or to study something. Each one is part of a process and not an end in itself.”

While a computer drawing of one thing will look the same if copied by many different people, the drawing made of something by one person will be unique. So yes, computers have their use in replication but the human spirit has its unique creativity. So for now, I will be sticking to my drawing instruments that include amongst other things, a tooth brush, comb, chop sticks, and sand.

my first art exhibition

May 15, 2015 Creative BuddhaLeave a comment

This week, my first ever art show opened. It may have been something vaguely I wanted to do in life but I really hadn’t thought much about it, except that it was ‘impossible’. Then I heard an inspiring talk given by a blind artist ( see my previous post on Annie Fennymore) and realised how actually I ‘understood’ her and her techniques for painting. I got talking to the person who organised this show and suddenly she turned to me and said, ‘Why don’t you exhibit your work too? We have a three month vacant slot here.’ I was deeply reluctant at first. My reaction was- ‘what if people don’t like it? what if people laugh at the work? what if people don’t get it?’ etc etc.

I was full of fear. But having thought about how much I was going to regret not taking this opportunity, I said yes eventually. Then I also decided to paint new work and re-worked some of the originals. I realised I had changed- I had taken on fear and won. Mark Twain said, “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” You can always learn from mistakes, but what if you’ve actually never made a mistake (as if that is possible!)? Life is all about making mistakes, learning from them.

It was hard work but I thoroughly enjoyed painting again. I didn’t try to please anyone- just painted to please myself and thought about what I would like looking at. Having now done this, I am in a daze- people have written so many kind words about my work. One said, “I have just been to have a look and the art looks amazing. You are very talented!”

Many people helped out, working on Saturday at 8-00 am working solidly for four hours to hang the pictures- none of them got paid to do this (although I certainly will send something to them). Someone who helped out with the hanging commented,”Just to let you all know that the pictures are all hung safely and, personally, think the corridor looks great…..several people have already admired them…..”

What can I say, I am speechless with gratitude! If my art moves and inspires people, even though technically it might not be amazing- it is perfect for me and them. It is my gift to the world. By taking on fear and leaving aside regrets, we can only become more creative and live true to our hearts. It doesn’t matter if I get any more compliments or not, or even if I get some nasty comments- I have won! So if you still thinking about something that you have never done, go for it now!

PS-writing this blog for the last three years also helped me to overcome my fears!

being an artist

April 17, 2015 Creative BuddhaLeave a comment

Jasper Johns, the ‘pop artist’, wrote about being an artist as opposed to ‘becoming one’. He said later of this resolve, ‘In the early fifties I was going to be an artist, and I thought,’Here I am. still going to be an artist. What was different? What needed to be changed, so I would be, rather than going to be?’ So he did two things- one, he destroyed previous works of art, almost to mark his resurrection as an artist and second, he painted the ‘Flag’- a modest piece of work that has become synonymous with Johns’ style. It was as if he had discovered himself and his true calling. Buddhists call this ‘throwing off the transient and revealing the true’.

Sometimes it takes some kind of dramatic life event for the person to do this, sometimes it is subtle. Nichiren, the Buddhist philosopher, was to be beheaded when he was dramatically saved and then after that, resolved to share his true self with others. Whatever the cause, the effect of this recognition of one’s true calling is huge and transformational. Mostly we are scared to reveal our true selves until something or someone forces us to. But why? Our true self is beautiful and creative, and yet we are afraid to show it. As Marianne Williamson said in her famous quote, ‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.’

My resolve to be myself has been slowly building up since I had my stroke and as sometimes, strokes bring back early memories, I have been reflecting on the electrifying effect Johns’ works have had on me as a small child.This work is titled ‘not 1975’. It is a collage of ideas about fear and revelation. It came about as I reflected on several scraps of paper I had found and a significant year 1975 when I had been very ill. I already had the central group of children peering from inside the tree- an image compelling and disturbing- what were they looking at? So with this central image, I put a collage together along with paint scraping away and revealing and hiding things. This became my way of explaining a sense of who I was, and who I had become from where I was.

acceptance and art

February 5, 2015 Creative BuddhaLeave a comment

I was very fortunate yesterday to hear Annie Fennymore speaking about her process of creating art. Annie gradually went blind as a young woman until she lost her sight completely in her forties. At the age of 49, she lost her grand daughter which turned to be the last straw but also proved to be the start of her career as an artist. Her husband gave her some quick drying DIY putty and using the long ‘ropes’ made with putty, she created her first painting which she is holding in the above photograph. This painting of a cottage is very simple, almost childlike-but for her this was a huge step forward. In the years following, she developed her style to a mature style of abstract colourful paintings that she says reveal her passion and love for life. She has exhibited all over the UK and has won awards including a commendation for Helen Keeler International awards. A selection of her works are exhibited at the moment at the Moorfields eye hospital in London where I am am outpatient too, with my eye problems. Do go and visit if you can.

Initially Annie depended on her memory for colours and shapes. Today she uses a number of electronic aids (colour identifiers) for the blind all of which have the software that converts all text into speech. These gadgets enable her to label her tubes of paint using a system which tells her the colour of the paint or the surface. She uses her finger tips to ‘paint’ on her colours after realising the painting in her head. Using ‘glue tack’ she outlines her painting just as someone would use a pencil and then she colours it in. Annie jokes that her adorable guide dog, Amber, often emerges out of her studios covered in paint! The drawing on the right is of Amber. Annie uses putty, PVA, paper and even toilet paper to create textures on her paintings. The painting on the left was made on driftwood.

I have written about ‘blind art’ before but Annie made me realise something very deep about being an artist. She said that she accepted her situation, she did not fight it. Instead she funnelled that energy into creativity. Now, I have spent a lot of my life fighting for things, fighting on behalf of other people. As I grow older and with increasing ill health, I see that sadly that energy could have been spent creatively instead. However, it is never too late to learn. Today, with great humbleness, I accept many of the situations I find myself and have decided to move on, concentrating instead on revealing my creativity and following my heart. Thank you, Annie!

http://www.blindalleyart.co.uk/index.html

Providence and preparedness

May 29, 2013 Creative BuddhaLeave a comment

On 24th May 2013, I wrote about the Scottish mountaineer, W H Murray, who was captured by the Germans during the Second World War and his astonishing story of writing his memoirs on toilet paper. Murray was able to capture the moment by being determined and through this determination, become able to make things happen (see my blog on Overcoming hesitancy)

Murray’s experience and quote resounds with Nichiren‘s explanation made in 13th Century Japan-

“It is like the case of a fishing net: though the net is composed of innumerable small meshes, when one pulls on the main cord of the net, there are no meshes that do not move. Or it is like a garment: though the garment is composed of countless tiny threads, when one pulls on a corner of the garment, there are no threads that are not drawn along.”

I remember this Louis Pasteur quote too, “Chance prepares only the favoured mind.” All these great minds were talking about the same thing. Last year, I started a chain of events by giving away books and other stuff to my colleagues in preparation for leaving my place of work and starting something new. At that time, there was nothing to suggest that there would be a favourable moment to leave as I was very busy and it appeared that I was really needed there. But that moment arrived in February this year, only about six months later. I felt as if I had created that moment when I started taking action.

T T Munger was a research scientist in the USA and he said this, “Providence has nothing good or high in store for one who does not resolutely aim at something high or good. A purpose is the eternal condition of success.” That moment was the right time to leave for something better was validated in this case. Agatha Christie, one of my favourite writers used this quote from Shakespeare Julius Caesar in one of her crime novels-

“There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;”

So if there is something that you really want to do, start preparing for it now. Then you will be prepared well when the moment to realise it arrives!

Overcoming hesitancy

May 24, 2013 Creative BuddhaLeave a comment

I have finally committed to doing some creative work that may not bring so much money as a salaried job. But I am committed to following my heart and I know that money will come from somewhere as long as I go with my heart. Going with your heart can give you special courage.

I bring to you today, the astonishing story of W H Murray, the Scottish mountaineer who climbed the Himalayas. His love of climbing captured the heart of his German captors during World War II and they respected him for the three years that he spent as prisoner of war. During his time there he had to write his beautiful romantic prose on toilet paper. His manuscript was found and destroyed by the Gestapo. But Murray’s response was to start again, despite poor health from near starvation and the risk of being found out again. This remembered writing was published in 1947 as the book, Mountaineering in Scotland, and was followed by the sequel, Undiscovered Scotland, in 1951.

The deprivation of the prison life seems to have actually set off Murray’s creativity. In 1951, he also wrote the book, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition. This book has the following extract, usually incorrectly attributed to Goethe because of the couple of lines derived from Faust (the bits highlighted are the ones you usually see on the Internet)–

“…but when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money— booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”

Let us learn from the inspiring life of W H Murray and his beautiful words that one can live by our creativity, even in the most dire circumstances by overcoming our hesitancy to commit.