A Blessed Unrest

To The Metal

“You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is ever pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” – Martha Graham

To be human is to create. Regardless of its form, whether tangible or not, we are constantly seeking out different forms of self-expression as a tool to explore and understand the world around us. But with creation, also comes conflict. We often ask ourselves how we can be expected to stay motivated when we are feeling our worst. Being overcome with the fear that we will never be as good as we want to be is a crippling reality that someone, somewhere in the world is surely facing at any given time. We must acknowledge that all things come in waves; happiness, creativity, love. These things are never certain, yet they are the things that we feel we need in our lives in order to be content; that if we do not have these things we must be doing something wrong. Yet, it is true, all things come in waves. One minute you can feel as though you are falling so hard and fast you forget how to breathe; like the wind has been knocked out of you by a giant wave and you are flailing around on the ocean floor trying to figure out which way is up. You think about all those times you took breathing for granted, when that same wave that knocked you down sweeps you back up toward the sun. All is bright again.

As I have come to terms with the fact that nothing in life is constant, I have accepted the fact that my work is something that continuously changes and evolves. Though the work changes, I continue to find inspiration in the same places: the natural world, the cycle of life, the feminine strength of a mother. I am forever influenced by the women in my life. My mother and my grandmother are the two strongest and most powerful women I have ever known. I was raised by a single mum and was always in awe of the strength she carried in raising my brother and I on her own. My mother taught me resilience, while my grandmother taught me to appreciate the beauty in the detail, teaching me to cook and to sew. She was a dressmaker, and was always using her hands to create something out of nothing. I used to think everything she touched turned to gold. She had a beautiful garden and was always on her hands and knees planting something new or picking fruit from one of the many trees that lined her backyard. Perhaps my Summer Fruits series was subconsciously inspired by her; inspired by the power and femininity of Mother Nature and the women that shaped me. After all, we paint what we know best.

It takes strength to surrender completely to who you are. These days there is so much hiding behind a mask, behind a filter. People are afraid to reveal themselves as they truly are. We often associate empowerment with confidence and self-assurance, but for me being empowered means embodying both strength and fragility and accepting all facets of oneself; applauding your strengths as well as your flaws, and giving yourself permission to just be. As an artist, and as a human being, you cannot grow or evolve if you do not fail at something or make art that you hate. I never know where one work is going to lead. I know my own style, it is something that is ingrained within me. I have learnt over time to trust it completely so that when I’m in the studio I can simply paint. Whatever it is that emerges that day, I accept. If I hate it, I hate it and that is okay. But in trusting the process of simply working and continuously making art no matter the outcome, that is when magic happens. Often in life and in art we get the feeling that a project or a goal is all about the end product, but there is just as much beauty to be found in the chaos of the process.