The Push & the Pull

My friend, Lori, was visiting and showed me her sketch book she had been using as she traveled around the country. I saw how her sketches related to the art work she was making. She had jotted notes in and amongst the sketches. It was great to see her expression of the places and feelings she experienced along the way.

In addition to getting an inner look into her experiences, it opened up the little space in me again that had been wanting to engage in a more direct visual expression.

I have a script in my head that tells me there are certain conditions have to met for me to be able to draw, the right time, the right subject, the right lighting. That it's about doing it the right way. So, what if I could find a place in me where sketching is play? Where I could approach it with pure abandon? No judgments or requirements. No expectations.

That night I dreamt of paintings, many of them. I saw a painting of a figure from the back with wild colors forming the shadows and outlines. When I got up I water-colored the image over a collage I had done from an old “how to” art book with a figure in it. With life being busy, it had been easy to ignore the impulse to create. It felt important to do something right away with the dream image.

And having done it, I could hear my little inner voice saying “draw some more” And yet there was still that resistance. Ah ha…here we are at the essence of the struggle, what I had been avoiding. The push and the pull together in the same moment, so uncomfortable.