Artist's Way Week 2: Soul searching

It isn’t ever the same. In time, I’ll change, and you, and the currents of our lives. But the image of this moment will never fade. This moment, and you, are unforgetable.

“To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

“We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.” — George Bernard Shaw

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul” — George Bernard Shaw

“There is nothing fiercer than a failed artist. The energy remains, but, having no outlet, it implodes in a great black fart of rage which smokes up all the inner windows of the soul.” — Erica Jong

(I love that quote! I once knew someone who “wanted to have written” who totally reminded me of this! He also told me he didn’t believe he had a soul…)

“When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life”
— Jean Shinoda Bolen

“Creativity is essentially a lonely art. An even lonelier struggle. To some a blessing. To others a curse. It is in reality the ability to reach inside yourself and drag forth from your very soul an idea.” — Lou Dorfsman

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
— Pablo Picasso

“Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” –Stella Adler

“Art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further.” — Keith Haring

This image is a page from my very first art journal, kept back when I was in high school in the 70s. I didn’t think of it as art journaling then; it was just a place I drew pictures and wrote things. Hard to believe there are entire books now about art journaling, when it was something I did so naturally.

I’ve always been a very visual person. Images are important to me, sometimes too important. I have images of people from high school years still very clear in my mind. I’ll be attending my 30th high school reunion this year, so it’s been a long time ago. But those years still seem like a time when I was most in touch with myself, and I think like many people, my real image of myself is tied to that period of late childhood and early adulthood. I smile a lot in recognition as I visit other web pages these days, seeing places I have been in the lives of others. I read a lot of older blogger’s pages, to get a sense of where I am headed.

So blogging really comes pretty naturally to me. I like being able to share my thoughts, and mostly I like being able to write and share my images. If others read, great, if they don’t, it doesn’t bother me very much. If people comment, that’s fine, and if they don’t that’s fine as well.

If you went back to the earliest pages of this blog, you would find some writing from when I went through my own period of recovery, after an episode caused by bipolar disorder. I suppose I’ve been bipolar most of my life, never to the extent I was during that episode, however. My life felt shattered and I came unglued, and had to rebuild a sense of myself from the ground floor again. Well, all that is under control thanks to some great medication I managed to talk my shrink into trying, and I live what is a pretty normal life. I’m one of the lucky ones. I have a sister and nephew who are entirely disabled by this disease. My sister lives in a supervised housing situation, my nephew refuse to be supervised so his life is a chaotic mess. I also have a brother who is thankfully unaffected by any of this.

So why am I so open about this? Because it is part of who I am, part of my history, part of my art and my creativity. So yes, there are artists who are “crazy”. No, artists don’t have to be crazy, but hey, some of us are, or have been. And I do sort of resent Cameron’s point noting that artists don’t have to be crazy. She doesn’t seem to realize that for those who have really been there, that’s a bit of a slur.

Anyway, for me, Chapter 2 is a bit redundant. I’ve had my recovery, thank you very much. Lost my soul and got it back again, cracked the mirror and pieced it back together, and every other metaphor you could think of. I don’t recommend it, but then, it isn’t something to be afraid of either. I think these days I’m a lot more sane than most people will ever dream of being.