Tags
art, colleciting, creativity, foraging, inspiration, personal, Pinterest, searching, Soul Searching
Painting by Erin Gregory
I stayed up late last night, way past my bed time, searching Pinterest for images to save to my boards.It was a quiet and soothing experience, punctuated by intense pleasure when I came across something that spoke to me, made my heart sing, or feel a deep, abiding resonance.
It reminded me of the pure pleasure and satisfaction I felt when I was living aboard La Gitana, foraging beneath the sea for food–pin scallops, lion paws, conch. There’s a certain mind-set you acquire when searching for something that lies half-hidden among all the other equally beautiful and arresting shapes of sea life. While swimming along the surface of things, your mind is keenly tuned toward just that precise shape and color that you know will yield what you are looking for. And when you see it, you dive down deep with knife and net in hand to retrieve it, before resurfacing to continue the hunt.
In the case of image collecting, the “food” I seek is for the mind and soul, something that touches me in such a way I feel blessed for having found it, for allowing my eyes to feast upon it, for letting what it was the artist sought to articulate speak to me.
In addition to that deep-souled searching is a more practical pursuit as I learn to paint with watercolor and pastel–a need to understand why certain images affect me in certain ways, and how the artist induces those felt-responses. How do colors and shapes and textures, certain strokes and effects, delight and move me the way they do? What makes the images arresting? What makes my eye linger here and not there? To feel such a connection that I want to “save” it, so I can return again and again to bask and meditate?
What creates this resonance, and what does it say about me, and about the artist?
I want to learn to apply paint to paper in a way that expresses my own delight in things that will move others as well. How do we share what’s deep and meaningful and enriching to us with others? Especially when what we find so striking or moving lies half-hidden within, not something we can clearly put our finger on–only feel.
So much to muse upon.
Here are a few of the paintings that moved and delighted me last night as I swam and dove among a sea of images on Pinterest.
Ocean Light II by John Hulsey
La Barque by Odilon Redon
A Wedding in December by Bill Gingles
The Parkway by Henri Manguin
Liminal Moment by Bobbette Rose
All this water and recognition of life at sea…the live-aboard…a woman after my own heart. Why do you live in Vermont instead of Bar Harbor? Extrordinary vision!
Thank you. The sea is indeed in my soul. But I don’t live in Vermont. I live in California, a short drive to the ocean.
Oh, How did I get you placed into that Vermont Women’s writer group… thanks for setting me straight, Lady.
These are beautiful. Thank you. Looking at floral and other photos on IG does something similar for me.
I’ll have to check out IG–Instagram, right? The internet truly is an infinite sea of images!
Deborah, if you’re interested in checking out IG, I post under @valoriegracehallinan. I don’t post too often, but I really enjoy it, and I follow a number of floral, nature and creative small business feeds that I find so inspiring. I’m trying to find the time to do some nature journaling and illustration. I don’t draw at all, am a total novice, want to do it just for fun and to make me more aware of nature, and secondarily better able to weave it into my writing. BTW I was just in CA, I so enjoy your state – my son just moved to San Francisco. Hope you are well, and it’s good to hear from you here.
Very nice post. I also want to paint in a way that delights.
Thank you, Nichole.
Truly inspiring post – and images!
Thank you, Jennifer.