Thoughts on Seeing and Designing a Painting

Most of us are unaware that our cultural conditioning, our perceptions are influenced by the media today. Instant everything.

We live and are immersed in the digital age. INSTANT EVERYTHING.

We come to believe that everything is equally important. When one designs a canvas, it’s important to know that the bottom of the canvas has more weight and therefore more significance in your painting.

Where to place ones’ attention in a painting is similar to designing one’s life. The edges of the canvas, like the edges of our lives, want less attention. This is a difficult concept for all of us. We’ve been conditioned to believe that we can have it all, all the time. We know this is false, but we do become disaffected when it’s truth is born out in our lives. Knowing when to let go of false or insipid information is important in our paintings and in our spiritual/soul life.

These are the challenges we set for ourselves in the Artists in Bloom Ministry. We are called a ministry because we are a community of people on the journey to God. For me, this is the Christian Trinity. However, we are joined by faithful Hindu’s and faithful Muslims, and faithful people, sharing our work and journey. It is not fashionable today to say that we are doing soul work. That this class is as much about spirituality as it is about paint and canvas.

Let us try to budge the logs in the forest of our eyes and see everything as new again, as if for the first time!