the artist's assertion

In thinking about this past year, I see it as a year of regaining a stronghold on my personal desires and activating a listening ear to my own intuition.  What of a person's desires?  I'm realizing it's possible to live decades of one's life aspiring to the desires (sometimes demands) of others, of societal norms, of institutions - all the while putting one's own desires aside or behind in priority.  Add to that the lack of attention (at least in American, East coast, protestant tradition) given to identifying and valuing one's own intuition.  Intuition, that inner knowing that percolates, converses and sometimes screams as the counterpart to rational logic takes a back seat and often just gets left on the side of the road in our thinking and feeling.

The most complete critical thinking and authentic living comes from a balance of intuition and the rational mind.

I believe I have had a strong intuition since childhood.  I relate these natural emotive and sensory driven gut feelings to experiencing fulfillment, self-direction, clear thinking, creative work, and relationships.  When I have ignored or put aside my intuition (as a way of fitting in, as a way of staying in a rational mode, because I feel like a weirdo - the only one feeling this way), I have suffered disappointments, felt confused or disoriented, and have spent much time, sometimes decades feeling the consequences of pushing a good friend aside.

This has been a critical topic in sessions with my therapist, and I have regained a sense of confidence and belief in that beautiful and wise, old woman who resides in my soul, Intuition.

I bring this up in this forum because, as an artist, the intuitive voice is a critical component of the creative work that I do.  I could talk extensively about my thoughts on intuition and self realization and the part these play (or not) in contemporary artists' work, but I decline that unintelligible rant because it's sometimes upsetting enough for me to lose all verbal acuity.  It's upsetting mostly because of my own habitual ignorance to intuition within my creative work and the American Higher Ed's lack of attention given to developing one's intuitive guide in creative work.  And that's what I really mean to get at: the intuitive voice as guide in the creative work - from the choice to place blue here, and red there to the choice to make a collection of drawings depicting my dreams (a brave undertaking).  Seems simple stating it like that, but conversely, when the intuitive voice is ignored or weak, creative work may focus mainly on pleasing professors, making art that sells, making art that's safe for conservative audiences, or just making the same art for years because the first time we made it, enough people "just LOVED it."  Am I talking about myself?  yes.  And despite making work that I still think was good work, I neglected to make even more work that was important to me.  I dismissed ideas as too weird, too personal and instead focused on ideas that fit better into the popular program of design and art-making.  Even now, I still put others' desires ahead of mine and often find ways to put my creative work (which my intuition is calling me to do) behind what I think are my responsibilities to others.  I would go so far as to say that the 3 year project called, GroundSwell Gallery became a way of ignoring my own desire to make art in order to fulfill others' aims to exhibit art.  It was good work, and I am glad to have had the experiences and relationships from that chapter of my life, but...  admittedly, I desired my own creative spotlight on my own life's main stage.

Who wouldn't put this adorable animal first? 

Questions about self direction, career, calling, purpose all came up along the way in this year of separation from all things past (we closed the gallery, left another long-held job, built and then moved into a new house, got a dog, etc.).  Despite my intuition's percolating doubt, I tried on the Real Estate professional's shoes, I considered exhibiting in local galleries, I poured myself into training my dear dog, and found numerous other ways to fill my time... whilst my desire to make art was placed to the side and the creative work was left undone.  It seems that even quitting jobs and wiping the slate clean can still lead to two choices:  1. reforming the same behaviors of self diminishment and avoiding creative work or 2. forming new behaviors that respond to the intuitive voice that's been speaking all along - i.e. listen to the beckoning intuition that says, "Make your art now.  this is your chance to do it for yourself.  You have that freedom."



Perhaps I begin a meditation practice whereby I repeat such assertive words to myself:

I am making my art now.
I possess the opportunity to do this for myself.
I am free.

(repeat)