Embracing the "mistakes"

Finding the glimmers in the failures as a signs of forward movement and part of the whole process.

Hello to You! It has been over a month since I last shared a letter on how my new studio and life has progressed. In all honesty it has felt like two months of growth and change since then, maybe more. Time is such a concept that depending on what life stage you are at or current paradigm, where life seems so much slower or faster than normal. I am happy to be writing to you now. Full of so much to say and hopefully I can transmute it to you without getting too wordy or distracted.

In the last month I have increased my subscribers by 20. That kind of growth I have never seen before. Perhaps it is changes to the platform that people are finding me. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that more people are willing to read another journey since so many of us are doing inner work. The work of knowing ourselves, of returning to ourselves. The work of saying no to the culture of everyone else and saying “yes” to the culture of one. Of our unique way of being. 

I have been excited and scared to greet my new readers. What do you want to hear from me? A typical mind pattern of mine is to start to think of all the ways I can be consistent and helpful. All the ways I WANT to show up and not being realistic on the ways I WILL show up. 

There is no formula here. It is ever changing just like me though I am trying to be more consistent. I am not sharing news or critiques. I share me. When I am able and of a clear mind. For me, life gets so foggy and will do so quickly and without notice. For me, I cannot in integrity write to you from these spaces but I WILL write to you after the fog has lifted and I can see the path under my feet again. I will not write weekly but when I do write you, it is hopefully clear and meaningful.

I am so humbled you are here. Thank you for being interested in what I have to say. If I don’t resonate with you. That is okay too.

Time passes, Mistakes happen and we keep on going.

Six weeks into having a studio and the journey is made real. The reality of what I am doing has settled and the metaphorical pink cloud has lifted. I am faced with myself and my art in cold blood at points, feeling like “What am I doing” “I won’t ever feel good enough”. This art is dead and I can never revive it, self destructive type of feeling, looms heavy. Im reminded over and over what this state is telling me, just keep doing the next thing. One step at a time I create and make mistakes. I paint and see success, I overwork and see utter shit. These is ALL part of the process and I am learning to move through the mistakes with grace

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I have said this before but mistakes are actually beautiful messes. I do believe that even though I lose sight, I still know. This is a mess I won’t make again because I made it already. Or this is a mistake I made but it led to this beautiful oops. Each “mistake” feeds an embodied realization of technique and trials, to future yes’ and no’s. This way or that way.

Honestly, I might have to make the mistake a couple more times to get it through my skull. I tend to learn by beating my head against a wall until I finally surrender in reverence to the strength of the wall. The wall is life and sometimes it gets in the way of what I think I want but really, life is just giving me exactly what I need. Another God damn lesson. Mistakes make life beautiful and they are what lead artists to their great works of art. But not a mistake sooner.

What does making a mistake mean to you?

 

Has it been covered in shame and guilt like mine? Proof of not being good enough so why keep trying? Do you deem your work a crap showing of skill so you never show it to anyone in a kinda of crawling back into the corner way?

I am surrounded by paintings. Viewed as mistakes or not good enough or unfinished. They aren’t colorful or dynamic enough. They become overworked and then overlooked as failures almost solely at moments. Unable to see the growth or the courage behind making something, anything in the first place.

Eventually I come back around to an understanding that these mistakes and utter shit paintings are part of the process of getting to where I want to go. Learning and living in this process is carving routes in my mind and body. This is the way we live. This is the way we learn.

If I am not making any mistakes I am not really living. If I am not trying new things and gaining perspective I am not living into my potential.  If I don’t allow for failure then I am never meeting my whole self, including the disappointed, frustrated, angry, melancholic self. If I am never striving to be better I am never feeling the successful self, the confident and calm self or the joy filled self.

Creating art and making mistakes is a way to meet the whole self. To face yourself and your shortcomings but to also look your beauty straight in the eyes. Through the success in fulfilling the process, we get to meet ourselves. 

Non linear creativity process and Trust 

I get distracted. Or maybe I get pulled by spirit in other directions. I have yet to discern all nuances of my distractions and side steps but they exist and that is enough to know.

I have found myself working with new materials and different imagery, no longer working on “the paintings”. Though in truth, I am still working on the paintings but I know the process now to be non linear and meandering. By taking an intentional or unintentional steps away from a project, I am allowing the clouds to melt away so that I can return to see it in a new and more clear light. I become so absorbed in whatever is in front of me. Taking steps away helps me return.

These pauses and retreats are not mistakes but part of the process. These step backs are not evidence of lack but evidence of humanness. 

“You are non linear. Your art is nonlinear. Your thinking is non linear.”  -Rae’s Husband.

My husband reflected this to me. He reminded me what I already knew. How my process of living and creating is non linear. I step away, I take a scenic route, I start new projects and I distract myself. But I always come back around even if it is months later. But in that time, I bring back something new. A different perspective. This is life. This is art.

Like many, I have always had a schedule given to me through school or work and I was able to meet those requirements but when it comes down to just me, my timeline and my brain are not 1.2.3. Or abc. My brain is 1 ? 5 ? 3. You get it.

My husband on the other hand is sequential and steady paced. He is persistent and clear sighted. My husband has no problem with keeping a calendar or schedule and is 95% consistent. 

I have found this reflection confirming for me. I have also found acceptance in this as part of me and not something I need to fix but to work with. To allow myself the grace, to think freely, I need to prepare the bones to hold a steady structure.

I must help myself by making it clear and making it visual. Just like I am making my own emotional landscape clearer by creating paintings, I can keep my ground at the forefront with my schedule materialized into a date stamped notebook. It seems a simple task but for me has been unreachable and inconsistent until I gained my own self respect.

 The power of writing it down is just as potent in schedule form as it is in prose. A confirmation of where I am in time and space. Materialized and created through my own hand and mind and understood cognitively through touch.

The world is designed to be linear but I am not. My life demands a degree or “togetherness” and it does not come to me naturally. I have made so many mistakes with schedule and timing over the last few years. I am reminded that I shouldn’t be swimming against my own nature but instead giving it a bit of a life raft during more destabilizing times.  

Perhaps You are non linear. You make and create and think in ways that don’t make sense to others but that is what will make your art great.

Trust in the unknown.

 In a non linear timeline of experiments, mistakes and discoveries. In the midst of stalls and starts and doubts and glimmers. The winding road is what will get me there. Trust is the currency to ride this train.

What does it mean to trust? What am I trusting, in this act of creating? Who am I trusting?

Am I trusting myself or am I trusting in a source of which I am a channel?  

Both/And

Am I trusting that this is where I am meant to be even if I don’t always remember why or forget that I am so lucky to be able to do this in the first place? 

I’m surrendering endlessly and only sometimes gracefully.

Am I trusting the pulse that pushed me to take a bet on me even when I make mistakes or mess up an whole painting entirely?

I pause. I return. I move forward gently.

Acceptance of imperfection. 

Acceptance is something that seems to be a daily and moment by moment exercise. Accepting what my reality is and allowing it to be, mistakes and messes, is a daily effort.

I have the brain of an artist, a sensitive, a divergent type, a rebel of spiritual proportions. I am not a mathematician or a business person. I am not structured or formulaic. I am utterly human. I am in real life accepting and expressing my “failings” and my messy monstrous parts to be that of an actual human, allowing herself to be human. Accepting my anger over and over and allowing it to be heard. Comforting my confused and distracted, absorbing brain that has been a shame filled hidden part of myself I have tried so hard not to show. But I am her and she is me and she is not me, all at the same time.

I have come to understand that accepting these less ideal parts of my self are not deeming me “not good enough”. Accepting the rejected parts is leading me in whole self living and informing me through a life lived in that way. A whole life, no parts rejected here. 

My one wish for the world of humans is to not reject, constrict or suppress any of their parts. To see and be seen in all your humanness and realize, in that mess, you are your most beautiful.

In reverence to you and your beautiful mistakes,

Rae

Listen Read Watch - an ever changing compilation of what has spoken to my spiritual creative practice lately.

Awakened brain by Lisa miller Phd

This book explains the scientific studies behind spirituality and mental health. I found it incredible and confirming from my own life. It is within spiritual practice and life’s darkest moments we awaken. For me, my darkest years have led to the awakened and aware version of me today. It is within my creative practice and conscious living I realign myself with my spirit. I highly recommend this book if it sends rise to your insides. It not, maybe another time.

Art2life Podcast with Nicholas Wilton 

https://www.art2life.com/2023/08/16/the-art-of-mistakes-nicholas-wilton-ep-95/

I love this podcast and have only scratched the surface. If you are looking to hear artist talk shop and using that language to make connections to the whole of the process, this podcast will make you a repeat listener. I have found much of what I have listened to helpful. The link above is all about mistakes and It resonated deeply with much of what I have written here but with 20+ years of experience under the artist’s belt.

Women in the picture by Katherine McCormack 

This book takes a looks at how women are depicted in famous artwork and how these images inform our history as women and shaped our view of women and our culture to this day. I found this book compelling and as essential learnings as I create paintings depicting my own body. It is important to understand the history behind how the female body has been shown, how female artist and art have not been given respect. It is important to understand our history. I desired greatly to take the power back. If only initially for myself.

Take care of you and move with the pulse of your breath. You are whole. We are whole. We will evolve and grow together. In infinite combinations, endlessly.