Creative work is alchemy. It is an honest process, that sometimes culminates something that can touch the honest places in other people too.
Art, music, poetry, and stories can help others feel how a person transforms a complicated or difficult emotion into a positive one. And if you attune to a given work, you too can usually feel a touch of the transformation, and perhaps even acquire its emotional arc for wielding when you need it.
To me, this is a valuable, albeit mysterious process. And this alchemizing of emotion is accessible to us when we take in a piece of art properly. You know this when a song moves you. And you can know it when a piece of visual art transports you too.
Below is an example of how I worked with a difficult emotion: fear with a sense of being trapped in danger – and transmuted it into something more akin to “satisfaction,” “calmness,” and “peace.” Whether you like the final drawing or not, inside it is something useful.
The context of its creation was a 13+ hour night drive through a snow storm with my husband, kids, and dog. We couldn’t peel off the highway without getting stuck (exits were un-plowed). Normally I love an adventure like this, even a bit of risk-taking (any kind of travel is a huge plus), but this time was different and my stress level was through the roof.
So, I did the drawing below from the passengers seat, atop a special photo from my phone. Below are the two images.1
Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
– Oscar Wilde
Great art picks up where nature ends.
– Marc Chagall
To explain the process more plainly, I drew what was (fear) and what I needed to be (5 beings safe) on a photo from a sacred place in nature. The process included working with light, layers, colors, lines and marks, and sharing via pixels, all of which I love. In doing this work, I changed my frame of feeling.
That’s because in creative process, we enter a calm space which often remains afterward too.
For example, I experienced a post-creation afterglow that filled my vision like imaginary space travel, because I then saw flakes of snow coming at the windshield like stars at hyper-speed. Feeling like I was on the bridge of the Star Trek Enterprise was infinitely preferable to a “we’re all going to die!” scream-y freak out with nothing but hyperventilation to lean on.
The mechanic is: working with love transforms emotions. And the representation, perhaps even a talisman, of this process is the work itself.
Every child is an artist.
The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
– Pablo Picasso
I’m relieved that I can make things, if I were to approach death for real, this is what I’d likely do until the end. And likely, I’d wish to share a “how to” with you too. Hey, if coming to calmness and wonder is only for me, what’s the point? Aren’t we in this teeming human pool of messy human emotion together?
And I love mystery, but I also enjoy demystifying process when possible too. Creative mechanics are related to mechanics of mind and perhaps can be be transmitted by objects2. I’m thinking, yes, even digital ones.
I hope you can find a bit of time to do what you love today, always, and especially when you have a tough moment. We need creative folks like you to keep going. So, please keep going.
You should use the tools of creation that you favor, and trust your inner process and vision. Your work may not make sense to anyone but you, or even be found appealing by anyone but you. That part doesn’t matter. The making of the work does.
And often, that’s as it should be. No one said art needs to be deemed worthy of popular taste to be of value. In fact, historically, quite the opposite is true. Our most notable artists and poets throughout time are not always understood by their peers, usually making work that first satisfies only themselves.
That’s the key to timelessness too. But that’s another post.
If you think you’d like to experience an in-person workshop around this, complete with making your own Transformative SymbolWorksTM3, please share your thoughts in this Google Form. From your replies, I’ll plan to lovingly craft something that may address your desires.
I’m also asking a few questions about another idea I’ve got kicking around: a fine art, limited edition postcard subscription for collecting or gifting. A visual, alchemical library of sorts.
Hey, a girl needs to make a few bucks and move her work through physical spaces more widely as well to keep the USPS busy. And my 16 year old keeps shaking me down for cash, which I haven’t had much of for a while. I’d like to take her out for Korean food once in a blue moon.
As usual, I’m “burying the lead,” as they say in copy-writing, and only responding to those folks who complete this form. I love burying the lead, because it’s such a pleasure to resist “in your face” calls to action, which we’ve all grown to find a bit tiring and trite, but that’s a marketing concept, and not for today.
Thank you for getting this far. I’d love to hear from you.
FOOTNOTES & SUB-SUBTEXT 😉
- If you’d like to see more drawings with before & afters like this, I usually include source photos on my instagram feed. ↩︎
- Still a little preoccupied with e=mc2 thinking of mass as a piece of work. ↩︎
- I need a name and honestly, so many terms I’ve coined, and materials I’ve crafted, have been used by others to make money. So supposedly, this TM sign gives me a modicum of protection from profit-driven imitators. A deterrent, if you will. As much as I wish I could continue to give my best away for free – my track record includes public art, public offerings, rock-bottom fees that helped folks explode growth in their businesses, and personally funded social movements – I’m joining capitalism again, but seriously hoping to function on the outermost edges of this with freedom. We’ll see. ↩︎
