Pick Up Your Can.

"I have nothing to say... I have everything to say..." I circle in these phrases aloud to myself while staring at the empty beginning of a canvas. I am uncertain where inspiration comes from. I only know that he always eventually shows up.What's the point of having so many feelings if they all want to happen at the same time or not at all? Art vomit. We've all seen it. We've all made it.

I have always been one that feels things very deeply. As an "empath", it is exhausting. As an artist -- coal to the fire at times I suppose. But sitting here and taking into account everything that is currently going on in the world, both the artist and the human in me are tired.

Between a personal spiritual life, professional life, and then an unwarranted political life force-dumped on top, navigating my own humanness becomes difficult and time consuming. Not to mention, finding the patience to create anything out of it -- impossibly frustrating. But it's not about "putting yourself at the top of your to-do list", it is remembering that you are the piece of paper itself. Fold it nicely. Keep it dry.

In the times of valley and grief that I have been gifted, I believe as an artist that it is my responsibility to pick up my sword and respond. Especially when my emotions are the most unclear because, perhaps, that is where the answers are waiting. When I start to calcify and become fearful of failure, I stop creating anything at all. It is not a conscious decision, I make the excuse to myself that I'm waiting for "more clarity" in my inspiration -- but the inspiration is there waiting for me to just meet him at the canvas.

Pick up your can -- whatever your can is, and paint.

"MIRAGE" (pictured above) is painted in response to life's temporary impressions.