Explosions

‘Explosion 1’, 2021; Gouache and mixed media on paper; 9.5”x13”

The ‘Explosion Series’ started off innocently enough as an exploration into ‘how do I want to paint THIS time?’. After years of not painting, (a conscious decision on my part in which I was creating and building my psychic practice and business, which also means I was choosing to create myself in a whole new way) - it became clear to me that it was time to paint again. Of course this clarity showed up in 2020, during a world pandemic. You know about that already, because you were there. You probably made some big changes in your life too.

By the beginning of 2021, I was ready to call my new works completed paintings. Even though I’d been working on them and towards them in 2020, they were ready to be seen (I was ready to show them!) in 2021. That was a tumultuous year in my life, and I know I’m not the only one. After a long illness, my mother died in February 2021, and then my husband and I packed up and left Southern California to move to Portland, OR. Lots of upheaval, explosions all over the place. It was exhilarating, nerve wracking, sad, fun, and a million other emotions.

‘Explosion 2’, 2021; Gouache and mixed media on paper; 9.5”x13”

Explosions in my life led to healing

I was so happy to get out of SoCal, I was really done there. I’d met many wonderful people and made many new friends in the 15 years we’d lived there. But I knew I was at a standstill, and needed a change. It wasn’t the pandemic, it was my need to grow. Plus I had a wonderful opportunity to work in person with my fellow psychic teachers, all based in Portland. Together we created and taught classes and workshops, under the direction of a very dear friend and talented psychic and teacher. I’d been working online for a while with this group, and feeling a bit isolated. The thought of working in person together was exciting for me. My past experience working in a psychic school in Chicago, while important and a great education, was very painful. The director of that school was difficult and controlling, uncomfortable with himself, making it hard for anyone else to ever feel at ease. I don’t blame him for my experience there, I chose to be there and learned a lot of valuable lessons from it.

Moving to Portland to work with my new group who had all chosen each other was every bit the healing I’d hoped for.

Changes have happened there too, as they will, and we are back online teaching, having closed the physical school. But the trust and camaraderie and ways of working together that we have built remain. We don’t just work together, we are friends. Even though a couple of us are leaving Portland (yes, I am moving twice during a world pandemic, lol), our bond is strong and the new online school, Art of the Seer, is amazing. A LOT of explosions in the making!

‘Explosion 3’, 2021, Gouache and mixed media on paper; 9”x12”

I am grateful to be back on this art making journey again. I’d always intended to come back to it. I know that even though I stopped making paintings for some years, I never stopped making art. And now, after years of not having enough space to make physical art, that space is here for me. It’s all timing, and I have become a master of seizing the day when it arrives.

I’d given away many of my art supplies when I stopped painting, and so I needed new ones. Before I started to amass a (new) massive quantity of art supplies (truly one of the most fun parts of being an artist again after a long hiatus is going to the art supply store and seeing all the new cool stuff that is out there!), I thought about it. A lot. I dreamed and thought and sketched (just a little) and really really longed for the feel of paint on my hands.

I am ready to create an explosion of color again. To me, an explosion is a letting go, a release of energy. Losing a loved one is an explosion, so is moving, changing one’s whole life, having to discover a new way to be because the whole world is changing so rapidly around you. There can be such deep change that occurs, sometimes it’s subtle, and all of a sudden, there you are.

Making art has always been a way I’ve expressed my own growth, changes, or way of being and feeling. In the ‘Explosion Series’ I’m exploring the pictures of today’s explosions.

Explosions rarely, if ever, look the same. Every moment of a day is never to be repeated again, even when it feels the same. This time we are in is right here, right now, like the saying about how you can never stand in the same river twice.

Explosions are necessary. In order to create the space for something new to grow, one must be willing to blow up what was, to let it go. As we psychics say, to blow the rose. There’s a lot of trust in letting go, especially if you’re not sure of what’s next or what’s coming. But what a relief to have that space, to be empty for a moment!