Show Up As You Are

The Artist's Life and Finding Order in Chaos

Dear Fellow Portal Travelers!

The movement between artist and world has always fascinated me. It is said that the artist must have an essential self to return to again and again, in between the other parts of life. But there is something flawed in that model - that idea of separation between life and art. That life is what you do outside the studio, and art is what you do in the studio.

 When I think this way I can get caught up in trying to find some illusory place of order away from the chaos. That will enable me to forge this giant leap transporting me instantly from a busy life to that other magical realm of serene inspired productive art-making.

The world has escalated to a state where we experience so much coming at us, so much stimulation and input, there’s a real need to reverse the direction of the information, and let the faucet flow out through us.

This is easier said than done. Life is about growth, we are here for the full development of our souls, and art is the way we do this. But life is created in the present moment. And the key to this, as they say, is to “Be where your feet are!’ That is where the magic is found.

My husband tells people how lucky he is to be married to an artist because we see the world in a different way. It slows him down. And it opens up ways of looking at the world that he never thought of before.

When we first started spending time in Santa Barbara I was instantly captivated by the ocean. I’d been going to the ocean since before I could walk and I find it so relaxing and peaceful. I’ve always wanted to live at the beach. And I found very quickly that living here was all that and even more. With the ocean as this omnipresent backdrop to life - I started seeing deeper into it. The way the ocean is always slightly different every day. I was drawn to the visual layers in the water, the variations of color and depths and the movement of the currents - until that was all I could see when I gazed at the sea.

I began painting at the beach. I’d pack up my sketchbooks and watercolors every day along with our beach chairs, and towels and picnic supplies. And amazingly - I started making these calm, meditative paintings. The beach is a quiet place where we can meet our true selves, exactly as we are in the present moment. Where the noise of the world naturally dissolves into the rhythmic, comforting sound of the waves creating a natural sense of order.

The beach became my sacred space. And as Joseph Campbell writes, Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.”

This process of “getting in the studio” has always taunted me as something to figure out, something to master - yet eluded me at the same time when I try to grasp it outwardly. Because like the ocean, life is different each day, and we are different every day. And what I have found is that the present moment, that sacred space where I meet myself, becomes what I have begun to refer to as my ‘Axis Mundi’ - a still point in an ever changing world. In that place, art and life converge effortlessly and I paint wherever I am. Robert Henri reflected on this experience, writing “The object isn’t to make art, it is to be in that wonderful state that makes art inevitable.”

We all interact with the world and experience the world in our unique ways. And we all share that desire to find a place of peaceful centering where we can be ourselves. (I’ll write more about the studio practice in the next Portal, because it applies not only to the artist life but life in general.)

So for now, the thing I know to be true as instructions for living as an artist or as a human - or both - is to Show Up As You Are, and Start.

I’m sharing below some of my artistic creations that support meeting this Present Moment Self - my ocean paintings, Cloudstones, and a studio playlist that I hope you will enjoy - however and whatever magic you are creating in your life, today.

Let your light shine,

Lisa