There are some days.

You know, those days when every word is a struggle, the light fades before you can change lenses, and the brush and canvas are not even on speaking terms.

Those days.

On those days I can get to wondering what the point is.

So I thought I’d share this quote with you because it really resonated with me. It is going up on my studio wall where it will remind me to keep perspective when I’m having one of those days. Maybe you’ll find it a bit inspiring too, or at least interesting.

I think this is something we grasp intuitively, but perhaps rarely think about.  And I think it is really beautifully put.

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“…if someone asks ‘To what purpose should we help one another, make life easier for each other, make beautiful music or have inspired thoughts?’ he would have to be told: ‘If you don’t feel it, no-one can explain it to you.’ Without this primary feeling we are nothing…”

Albert Einstein 1919

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Wishing you an inspired and beautiful day

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Sometimes one goes looking for inspiration.

For me, whether that search is out the window, through my lens, in the stroke of a brush, or into my interior it is almost always fruitful. From my perspective, we are surrounded by an infinity that is constantly evolving. A place where everything is always imbued with renewal.

No two moments in the universe are ever the same, and in this reality lies magic beyond that which any incantation might evoke.

This kind of creative searching has its place; is essential even, but it isn’t the topic of this post.

Today I want to write a bit about that other kind of inspiration. The kind of inspiration that comes calling of its own accord.

Like a first snowflake settling on the still green grass, it can herald an oncoming wave, or simply one fleeting drop. Regardless its form or duration, it is unfailingly a delightful rush.

I absolutely love getting caught up in the flow of something new.

Recently I was accosted by a poem written by a friend and it sparked the immediate need for me to draw.

I was stunned to find that what I was drawing was a mandala.

I haven’t created a mandala of any kind in more than a decade. And if I had thought about why not, I might have said that my work had evolved—had moved in new directions.

Which just goes to show how wrong a person can be.

Below you’ll find my first new visual piece of 2010. It was inspired by this wonderful poem by Marianna Paulson:

Living. Breathing.

Breathing. Living.

Inspiritus -
inspiration -
spirit.

Awaken. Breathe. Live.

Now.

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You can find Marianna at her website, blog, and on twitter.

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Here is the image inspired by Marianna’s wise, beautiful, mantra-like poem.

I hope you will enjoy the viewing as much as I enjoyed the creating.

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title - breathe life - by Kayt Hoch

I suspect mandalas may be making a new visitation to my creative life, time will tell on that.

Truth is, I still feeling like drawing. And the energy buzzing my fingers feels a lot more like a wave beginning to roll, than one lonely drop from an otherwise pale blue sky.

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tech stuff - in case you care

The drawing was created from blank screen using Photoshop CS3 software. All elements of the piece were hand-drawn, (using a Wacom Intuos3 tablet) combined with two gradients (created by me), and integrated using various blending modes and transparency levels.

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I am cutting bamboo today.

And I’m thinking about a conversation I had yesterday. I was talking with a very talented writer friend whose words just won’t come right now.

We talked about the empty space. The isolation uninvited that visits weighty upon one’s shoulders in times like these.

How it comes calling in companion of a dark pointlessness that is both seductive and fatal. How it leaves one feeling utterly cut off from everything.

I thought a lot about this while looking down at the bamboo piling up at my feet. Realizing I’d let the stand grow much to thick. That it was choking the decades-old sword fern planted nearby.

I knew I’d waited too long to thin the bamboo because I couldn’t bear the thought of giving up any of its beauty. I was focused only on losing what I was trimming away, rather than on the space and light I was giving what remained.

This made me think about how I fight the fallow times in my own creative cycle. How I forget so easily that the goal is balance. How there must be an exhale to make room for the next breath.

And I thought about how the serene sound of bamboo in the breeze is a wave oscillating above and below the line, automatically balanced perfectly about it’s center.

I thought then about how this was so much like my creative biorhythm. How the only times I really lose track are when I stubbornly keep pushing in the same old direction. Forget to step out of the trench my feet are grooving in the path.

About the times I don’t realize that the light is having trouble getting through.

I wished then that my friend had been there with me in the garden. That the bamboo might remind her too of how important that empty space is. That if no light can get through it is challenging for anything to grow.

So, I finished up thinning out the bamboo until I could easily see the afternoon sun shining through. Until the fern had some room to reach out.

And then I took some of the beautiful stalks I’d cut and put them in a bucket of water in my front window.

I figured they deserved a chance to take another breath, a chance at a new reality, another kind of growth.

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They are gathering now.

Each day in greater numbers.

Sparrow fledges arrive first, then soon the Starlings and Finches. And if I’m lucky the Horned Wrens will come for a week or so while they have young to feed.

Sparrow fledglings are so round, frizzy, and scared looking to me.

They sit almost always in pairs. Teetering on the wrought arms supporting my feeders. A blur of wings beating for balance and a lovely din of insistent chirping.

It is the dad sparrow that does the feeding.

One seed at a time.

He flies down to the feeder and up to one waiting mouth, and then again, and again. And then he flies to the nearby tree. Waits there. Watching to see if they will try on their own.

The babes flutter and chirp. Call out to him. Look down at the source of their food. Then cry some more.

So dad returns. And reassures them, shows them again that there is food.

Feeds them more seeds, one at a time.

This makes me think about all kinds of hunger.

(more…)

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