Postcard from The Portal

Hello!

My first studio email, THE PORTAL, went out a week ago. I’ve always said that the joy in creating is bringing something into being that did not exist before. There is also this other less-talked-about aspect to the creative experience, however, that verges on awe and terror, exhaustion and excitement, when you work so hard for so long (THE PORTAL has been in gestation longer than a human baby!) to bring that thing from an idea in your imagination all the way to full actualization. You send it out into the world as this brave form of self-expression and at that same moment you let go of a brand new thing that will take on a life of it’s own.  

And on the other side of THE PORTAL, at this point of creation, I had a realization - and an unexpected gift - that all of a sudden, I have a blank slate, a brand new canvas and medium for my creativity and expression. It is a wholly new feeling and awareness to be part of this thing as it evolves and I evolve, and continue to grow my art and studio and share my world with you. 

So, needless to say, after all that heavy-realizing I did on Friday, I was ready for some rest and quiet. Time to ‘fill the well’ again, so to speak. To immerse myself in a place of quiet outside me, to touch the quiet place inside me. So on Saturday, my husband John, Max the poodle and I hopped into the car to go to one of our special, retreat-from-the-world, sacred places - the Krishnamurti Library and Retreat House in Ojai.

A Quiet Place of Inspiration

We’ve been going there since the early days of our courtship. I forever cherish a copy of Krishnamurti’s beautiful book on meditation “This Light In Oneself” that my husband inscribed for me in August of 2014 “For you Darling, With all my Deepest Love, Your John, on the occasion of our Picnic Lunch Under the Big Pine Tree at Krishna-Ji’s Cottage.” We’ve had many picnics there since then, and after this weekend’s again under the Big Pine Tree, I took out my sketchbook and paints and began to draw my surroundings.

Ojai is this lovely little California village, located just over the hills from the sea, that hits all the notes of quintessential Old California flavor meets New California individuality. The landscape is a symphony of rolling ranchland dotted with oak trees, with orchard of Orange trees and native agave plants, against a backdrop of the mystical Topa Topa Mountains.

Art as a Meditation

I’ve been drawn to the distinctive hand-built stone walls that go on for miles - bordering each farm like a lyrical thread across the terrain that divides, yet ties everything together. There is something about the placement of the stones and the solidity of the wall - the groundedness - the feeling of eternity that these stone walls convey, dating back so far and yet feeling like they’ll be here forevermore. So I began a painting of a stone wall at Krishaji’s - first pencil drawing and then watercoloring the stones to enliven it with presence, with pattern and unity.

The drawing of the wall became like a meditation in itself, fully consuming me and guiding me on, while I was totally present to the moment. As Thomas Merton says art is where you find yourself and lose yourself at the same time. And that’s what happened.

Artists are forever trying to capture something - a felt sense - of the eternal. And when we express it in a painting, it too becomes eternal.

I’m sharing some photos from my painting session under the Big Pine Tree at Krishna-Ji’s house below, and two favorite paintings of mine of the California landscape that capture the eternal.

Let your light shine,

Lisa

My makeshift studio at Krishnaji’s Cottage Under the Big Pine Tree

Max the burgenoing art-aficionado

Often in my sketchbook when traveling I will make a location plaque within the painting like I have here. The drawing and painting of the stones one by one to fill the page became like a meditation in itself. I’m drawn to the stone walls - the permanency - the underlying foundation, a sense of constancy in an ever changing world - but with this variation on a theme of sorts - as the eye follows the different sizes, shapes, shades of light and dark, and colors - each stone is part of the whole. And they are all there together, with a sense of the infinite in the immediate moment. 

Quintessential rolling California hills, always evolving somewhere from green to gold, the eye pauses on certain moments as it tracks the landscape across the page. On the left, the sky, clouds, feeling of clear lightness and air comes down and touches the land, for a moment of quiet harmony. As above, so below.