15/12/2016
I am an artist. I paint all of myself on the canvas, the light and the dark, the storm and the sunrise. I must have access to the full spectrum of experience when I paint - every thought, feeling, urge, longing, impulse of every colour, shade and hue, from the sacred to the profane, from the messiah to the messy - all are necessary, and even the intense, uncomfortable, painful shades are not mistakes and have infinite worth.
I tell the truth with my artistry. As I paint l let all of life move through me and flow onto the canvas, from the joy and the bliss to the fear, the anger, the shame, even the guilt and the loneliness. In a place of utter sensitivity I find power, electricity running through my veins. In a place of utter vulnerability, open to inspiration, I feel the surge of life through my heart, my arms, my legs, my lungs, my toes and my fingers. I am humble here, a vessel, yet l am great and powerful too; empty yet filled with many, many worlds.
All paradox falls away as the painting paints itself through me, and I watch, bewildered, amazed, free from all concern. The painting is a celebration of myself as l am, of the Universe as it is. I fall into a state of deep trust, surrender and flow, a state prior to mind. No painting is 'bad' or 'wrong' here, even if it never gets sold, even if nobody ever sees it again. All my paintings have value even if they have no worldly value, even if they die a death in some dusty attic somewhere they have lived in my heart for a moment and that's what makes them precious and deeply loveable.
I am an artist because I am awake to all of myself and l have given my paint its freedom. I have liberated the canvas from the tyranny of my mind. And in this way, we are all artists at heart, painting each day with ourselves, coming to know in every moment the infinity of colours that we are, learning to bless our joy as well as our sorrow, love our boredom as much as our bliss, bow to our certainty and hold our raging doubt close, like a newborn.
The canvas is waiting!
Jeff Foster