Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Michelle Matisse North County San Diego artist shares perspective onthe creative process of painting a beautiful picture

And now a brief departure from holistic health. The talented wife of my dear friend Ronny Nash Michelle Matisse posted this enlightening comment regarding this piece of artwork she posted on her Facebook page:




The cool thing was that it was so different than anything she had ever done before and I was uncomfortable when I first saw it. So I asked her to please elaborate on this painting. Generally Michelle's paintings look more like this:


Very pretty right? Yes and always colorful and always beautifully designed I was totally confused by her new abstract technique. But this artist, being the true artist that she is, and of course without question Took it upon herself to answer my question with infinite grace and detail:


"This painting is still in progress and an example for a lesson I am teaching in my weekly art class in Rancho Santa Fe. The approach here is called Intuitive Painting.  There is no preconceived plan or notion for the painting.  It is a meditative play with color and water, dripping and gravity, letting go and being in the moment, open to co-creation with happenstance.  You can be a little bit in awe about what happens on the canvas without necessarily taken credit for it.  It is the opening of the vessel to let creation flow through you rather than being the creator yourself.  It is a wonderful practice to get back to creative play when you feel stagnant.

There are stages in this practice: you can allow the canvas to inform you what it wants to become, rather than letting your ego or preconceived idea give the direction.  You will become better in silencing negative self chatter, doubt, criticism. Eventually you can balance this approach with allowing imagery or symbols to take place, but often the contemplation is about the visualization of an essence or energy before it becomes an image or symbol.  How for example would you  capture the essence of peace if you could not paint a dove or a peace symbol.  The essence of joy, playfulness, inspiration?  How do we nurture these qualities in us or in others? Practice capacity delight."  Michelle Matisse

This is an example of how Facebook can be a marvelous interactive medium. We hope that Facebook remains as personal and as interactive as it has been for the last several years. However I think Facebook is deteriorating through greed and through usery of the database of members and these kinds of interactions will generally start taking place on other sites that benefit users and are more appropriate to the people who use them and honor the people who use them far more. Please reference The EcoHealthLab YouTube account account or my Facebook page for more information on this.   

Thank you Michelle for this lovely comment, your continuous sharing of your artwork on Facebook and all the community work that you do the benefits so many artists and individuals and now you know where my blog is! Enjoy.

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