I started painting in earnest when I left my corporate role in May 2010.
What I remember most about my early experiences was feeling free. There was the blank sheet of paper, a full wheel of color options —
And the brush.
With brush in hand, I participated in the emerging possibilities.
Though my initial instruction was to make a plan for the piece, I would not. I wanted to be free. To be receptive to what could come without my plotting and control. I wanted to let go.
In doing so, I experienced an unimaginable intimacy in the movement, the connecting, the asking and the receiving. Painting for me, is a dialogue with the divine.
A participation in the flow.
“A painting is never finished — it simply stops in interesting places” — a quote from Paul Gardner — is a frequent companion while I paint. Endless freedom —
And yet.
These conversations that come through me are also relational, concrete and particular. They are matter. And they matter.
In the last four years, I’ve used my art in meditation with groups and individuals and I’ve experienced that seeing and responding to art from one’s heart facilitates new arisings. It invites us into our own interiors through reflection — and connects us to the interiors of others through sharing. It provokes, challenges, renews and expands individual meaning — and invites, through sharing, a common ground for emerging points of views.
This experience holds what individuals and communities long for today: inclusion, capacity, creativity.
More being.
JULIE ANN STEVENS 