Give your heart room to grow wild.

Posted on July 7, 2016 by Louise Gallagher

Art Journal Entry
July 7, 2016
Mixed Media

Hearts do not grow strong locked within a box. They cannot fly free trapped within a cage.

Set your heart free to dance to its own wild tattoo. Let its earthy beat stir the depths of your desire to love deeply, live freely, give fearlessly.

Be wild at heart. Dig deep into the soul of your majestic essence.

Unlock the door. Throw the windows wide open and let your heart run wild in the wonder of your creative expression.

Give yourself time every day to give birth to what calls your heart to beat freely.

Unleash your creative spirit. Unhinge your creative expression. Dance. Paint. Laugh. Leap. Play. Sing. Howl. Stomp. Dive deep.

Let your heart grow wild in the joyful expression of your life lived boldly beyond the limits of your imagination.

Great artistry abides in everyone.

Posted on May 27, 2016 by Louise Gallagher

Great artistry copy

If I had met them walking down the street, I might have been inclined to judge them by their look. To think the two young men walking towards me were out to find trouble, or at least, aimlessly wandering without direction.

In every human, judgements reside.

Not knowing their artistry, not knowing their story, I might have wondered about how we could be of the same world and inhabit the same space when we are such world’s apart in how we appear to the world. I might have passed them with a fleeting thought about what caused them to look so fierce. To dress so grunge. To think being hipsterish was cool.

On their part, I might think that if we passed each other walking down the street, they would not even notice me. I would imagine they were so caught up in the stage of their lives, they would not notice an older woman walking down the street, or even wonder if we had anything in common.

And then I watched the video of two young ‘hipster’ men dancing.

What struck me most, what superseded any judgements I might, or might not have had about their ‘look’, was the passion of their dance and the incredible discipline, training and commitment to their art it must have taken for them to be able to dance together like that. What talent and creativity. I was in awe.

When I posted the video on my FB page, a friend commented on the power of their dance. When I replied with my commentary of how judgements of ‘the look’ could have interfered with my seeing the beauty of their art, she replied, “Great artistry abides in every human costume.”

Yes!

Within each of us great artistry abides. No matter how we look, what we wear, how deep our pockets, how tight our pants or how long our pasts. Great artistry abides within each of us.

It is what struck me every day when I worked at a homeless shelter and started an art program. The individuals who came to the studio didn’t have deep pockets, they didn’t have a wealth of clothing options or choices on how to share their creative gifts, or how to express themselves through every medium. We only had so many supplies in the studio, so many canvases, so much paint for people to explore and use.

It didn’t matter.

Because when they walked into the studio, they came with the fierce desire to create. They came with their deep passion for expressing themselves through their art.

While homelessness may have ripped away all of their possessions, undermined their self-confidence and sense of place, they all shared a fierce commitment to holding onto ‘the thing’ that no one and nothing could take from them. Their creative essence.

Life can be tough. It can tear us down. Pummel our dreams and shake up our sense of purpose. It can hold us in arms of sadness, grip us in the death maws of addiction, weigh us down with the heaviness of sorrow, loss, regret, and trauma.

But it cannot take away the greatness of our individual artistry.

That abides within us.

No matter how deeply it gets buried beneath the clothes we wear, the heaviness of our backpacks, the depths of our traumas, our greatness cannot be diminished.

And when we set ourselves free to express ourselves from that place where all that matters is being true to ourselves and our self-expression, we create a world where differences diminish, judgements disperse. In that place all we are left with is the raw, beautiful and shining gift of our greatness.

I am so grateful these two young men had the fierce confidence, passion, discipline to not leave their artistry buried within them. I am so grateful they chose instead to dance with abandon for all the world to celebrate.

Let us all dance with abandon today so that in our dance, the world can celebrate the great artistry that abides within each of us.

*******************************

Thank you Slim Russell for inspiring this post.

The creative impulse is not a mystery when I take time to express it.

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Louise Gallagher

“The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.” Frank Herbert, Dune

Where do ideas, vision, openings to creativity begin? Is there an end? Where does the creative impulse come from?

Not really a mystery but definitely a source of wonder and awe, the impulse to create drives me every day to write here, to journal, to draw and paint. It calls me to express myself in artful ways that often surprise me with their capacity to reflect the mystery of my dreams, the yearnings of my heart, the wonderings of my thoughts.

And then, there are those periods of time when I stop. Stop painting. Stop art journalling. Stop going down into my studio in the evening to give expression to my creative urges.

I have been in such a space since May. At first, I thought it was just that I was tired out from all the wedding prep and the hours upon hours I spent creating for it. I’d enter the studio in the evening or on weekends only to return upstairs to do some meaningless thing like watch a show on Netflix or the TV.

The avoidance of creating created the habit of not spending time in my studio and while it’s not particularly fear based, I know, avoidance strengthens fear.

My avoidance created a fear of creating. Of seeing the possibility in a blank canvas and letting the muse guide me in expressing my dreams upon its surface.

Yesterday, my team at work and I entered into what we have agreed will be a bi-weekly session on goal setting and visioning. Guided by a team member who worked for several years for a company that made regular conversations about goal-setting and vision a part of their culture, we started with a guided visioning session of what our work day will look like and how we will feel when we enter the workspace in six months, a year.

We shared what brings joy to our day. What creates satisfaction. We explored what we want more of in our work-life balance. What we need less of.

We talked about the things we’re doing we want to keep doing, the things we want to start doing to create greater value in our lives and the things we need to stop doing that undermine our sense of joy and satisfaction.

What things do you do every day that bring you joy?

For me, art-making every day creates joy in my life. It lifts me up. It fills me with a sense of peace, wonder and awe.

And I have been avoiding it.

Getting lost in the why of my avoidance will only keep me stuck in questioning the why of why I’m not doing it.

Not creating is not a mystery that needs to be solved.

The answer is simple.

I must make a decision to do it, to engage in it, to create the more in my every day that brings me more joy. I know creating in my studio lifts me up. I must decide to take action and then, make a commitment to do it and follow through on my commitment.

I commit to spending an hour in the studio every night. I don’t need to know the ‘why’ of my not creating. I need to take action now that I’ve identified the impact of my avoidance. It’s a pretty simple equation:

No studio time every day = an absence of joy every day.

Just as habits can be broken, habits can be built. Habits can be kept.

Up until our wedding in April, I had a daily habit of spending time in the studio every day.

It was good for my soul. Good for my being present in my life.

I’ve broken the habit. I can fix it. I have that power. I choose to step into my power and create the more of what I want in my life every day.

Joy. Harmony. Love. Peace and the mystery of creativity expressing itself in every way I am in the world.

Unapologetically Me

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Louise Gallagher

Bird of Contentment
Mixed Media
24″ x 30″
Louise Gallagher 2014

I created on the weekend. Spent time in the studio splashing paint and ideas and feelings onto a canvas that had hung around as something else waiting to emerge as what it was always meant to be.

It is the thing about creating.

Within every creation there is that moment where what is apparent is not what appears. Where what was becomes simply the path to what is.

The Bird of Contentment started out a couple of years ago as a landscape. Dissatisfied with where it was at, I applied a layer of cheesecloth and painted over and into the surface. A forest standing silent under a moonlit sky appeared. It hung around for while until this fall when the dark forest asked to become an autumn woods replete with riotous splashes of gold and red and ochre shimmering on the edges of a stream burbling merrily along its way.

I let it happen.

And still, it wasn’t fully expressed. It didn’t feel like my voice appearing on the canvas but rather, more like what I felt my voice should be if I was painting what I thought was easy, expected, common.

On Friday afternoon, I stepped into the studio and let my voice call me out into expression upon the canvas.

A thought had been forming for awhile about what wanted to be expressed on this canvas. I had heard it some weeks ago and let it simmer, let it percolate and coalesce into a calling forth from within me yearning to be released. Rather than just ‘painting over’, I allowed what was waiting to become apparent to give itself expression using what was already there as the foundation of what was looking to appear.

The expression of the Bird of Contentment evolved from the inspiration of a comment my eldest daughter wrote in her birthday card to me.

“Thank you for being so unapologetic about who you are, and what you stand for,” she wrote.

Birds are so delicate looking, so tiny and innocent and fragile and yet, so strong. They hang around the birdfeeder, sit on wires, soar above or float on the calm surface of a pond and are simply present to what is in the world around them. They squawk and tweet and sing and whistle and make themselves heard because that’s what they do. Birds are unapologetically who they are.

Birds naturally do what I have always dreamt was possible — fly.

I have always dreamt of flying yet, for many, many years, I kept my wings tucked into my body. I was fearful that if I let them out, I would not fit into the world. I truly would be the deep, dark secret the critter within whispered to me in moments of unease. “You are a misfit. You don’t belong. You don’t fit in.”

And, because I so desperately wanted to be liked, to be like others, to be part of the whole of the world I saw outside me, I tried to be who others thought I should be, the someone I believed I needed to be to get along in the world without letting my wings show.

And in my unease, I created a lot of ripples.

I like making ripples.

I like creating waves. Of love. Harmony. Peace. Joy.

But, because I was struggling to keep my wings tucked in, I often, unintentionally, created discord. Sometimes, I hurt those I love. Sometimes, I did things that didn’t make sense, that created bumps in the road and upended smooth sailings into tumultuous rides.

It is still possible to do these acts of discord – but in becoming free to express my voice, unapologetically, I am more adept at seeing when my actions create that which I do not want to create in the world. Discord and unease. Tension and pain.

It is the gift of time. When I see that I have created is not creating better in the world, I must breathe deeply into my unease, acknowledge the discord I’ve created and commit again to the path of creating more of what I want in my world. Love. Harmony. Peace and Joy.

It has been the evolution of my voice. The letting go and surrendering to my heart calling me to live from and through my own unique voice. To be unapologetically me.

And it has been the evolution of this painting.

From silent dark forest to tumultuous autumn woods to the Bird of Contentment.

I have splashed and sprayed and covered up and over. I have dug into and scratched the surface, I have wiped it clean and coloured it up.

And through it all, I have reached moments of discord. Those spaces where what is happening feels too raw, too real, too revealing, too vulnerable that I just want to stop. Step away. Forget it. Let it go and move on.

And still, I have persevered and persisted. I have kept digging into it. Keep moving through the discord to find the harmony and joy of being real and revealed.

There was a moment on Friday where it was very apparent to me that this painting was going nowhere. Where everything looked discordant and so jumbled up and ‘blah’ that I thought the only answer was to just throw the whole thing out.

I wanted to quit.

But the voice of my wings calling me to fly free persisted.

Don’t give up. You can do this. Be present. Be patient. Be open to letting it happen. Trust.

And so, I trusted in the process and let my wings appear through the messy globs of paint yearning for expression on my canvas.

And in their appearance, the Bird of Contentment arose.

And that’s the thing.

I couldn’t see how the final painting would appear until I got over my resistance to letting go and gave voice to my fear of flying.

In the freedom to be unapologetically present as who I am in front of the easel, what was always there waiting to be revealed appeared and in its appearance, my voice sang out loud and clear.

I am free to be me!

I am content.

: The first painting over with cheesecloth

: Autumn Calling

And….

Announcing my first ever art Calendar!

I also created a calendar over the weekend of some of my art and words. It was a fun and joyful way to express myself. I’ve decided to take a step ‘out there’ and offer it for sale. There’s still time to order a copy before Christmas! 🙂

You can preview and order it here: 2015: A Year To Dare Boldly

The complete expression of me, myself and I.

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Louise Gallagher

Soul Dance
Art Journal – Watercolour

In meditation yesterday, a thought scampered through my mind. (I know. Meditation is about no thoughts but there it was!) It wasn’t so much a thought as an image with the idea of my soul dance and what it knows.

On a comment to Di yesterday, I wrote what I thought the words were and then, last night, I let them find their true expression through painting them.

My soul knows the dance of life is a return to Love.

It is what I love most about the creative process. It is holistic. Organic. Self-fulfilling. It arises out of the quiet to find its expression in ideas and words and images. It is the complete expression of me, myself and I.

Safe in this moment of possibility

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Louise Gallagher

Walking into the studio to simply be present in its space has been a challenge for me this past week.

Fall has settled in and I have been building a nest to hibernate within, letting go of the possibilities of what comes next.

I resist that walk. I hesitate, tell myself I have other things to do, I’m too tired, too edgy, too anything other than present.

I lose myself into a novel. Turn on the television. Convince myself it’s okay to resist and tumble into that rebellious state where doing what is good for me, what is nurturing and supportive falls short of my conscious decision to not do what I know feeds my spirit.

I have been here before, in this space of rebellious resistance to the things that bring me pleasure, joy, peace, contentment. This place where I resist what opens my heart wide, sets it to beating fearlessly as I move into the flow of creativity coursing through my veins.

I am in my head. Walled up in rebellious denial of my power to walk through the barriers I have placed to keep me out of the heart-space of creativity where I am free to flow in all directions without needing a map, a guidebook, a plan.

In this space I ask myself questions that don’t have answers. They just have rabbit holes down which I slide into perpetual cycling in and out of rationalizing my state of being.

There is only one way to stop spiralling into resistance. Breathe and allow.

Breathe and allow.

Allow what is present without judging it or believing it will be forever.

Now is not forever.

And in the now that is not forever, I find the grace to allow myself to shift from inaction into action.

To turn away from the voice of resistance I must breathe and allow myself the sacred connectedness of sitting in front of a blank page, a white canvas and being present to my fear that what I create is not good enough or not right or that the timing is wrong, that I am not meant to create, or that I am too small to change, or too weak to deal with this state I am in.

There is no right or wrong or enough in creativity and I am never too small, to weak, to nothing. I am all that I am and there is only the act of creating exactly where I am at. There is only the act of casting words upon a page or throwing paint at a surface upon which I have already begun to tell its story if only to change the story that was present when I walked away from the space of believing in all things are possible.

It is sacred ground this creative space. And I have been holding onto the fear I will fall if I believe in it.

I breathe and allow.

Now is not forever and in this not forever place I let go of my fear of being stuck, of falling and of flying.

I breathe and lovingly acknowledge I have moved away, changed, shifted and am holding onto the fear that nothing is possible. In the nothingness of standing in fear with my eyes closed, I cannot see the light shining.

It is in the fearlessness of those moments, those tender, fragile moments where I fear what might be revealing itself upon the canvas or the page that I must let go of my fear and simply stand confidently and unafraid and do that which I fear the most — trust.

Trust in myself. Trust in being present. Trust in the muse, in creativity, the Universe.

When I trust in what is, in where I am, no matter where I am standing, Love is with me, creativity abounds and possibilities open up in endless gratitude for my being present to each moment unfolding.

I have been amusing myself in the land of darkness. It is time to open my eyes and breathe into my fear. It is time to allow possibility, creativity, hope and joy to surface. It is time to let go and trust, no matter what appears, I am safe in this moment of possibility.

It’s not about finding perfection.

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Louise Gallagher

Exploring 1
Art Journal page
August 12, 2014

Like writing, art-making takes a willingness to move through ‘the bad’ to allow the good to appear.

It is not about finding perfection. It’s about finding the perfect moment to breathe into what appears, exactly the way it is and delight in its presence.

I have been exploring art journalling.

Ah, you may ask, what is an art journal?

Like a diary, it incorporates words and enhances/intensifies them with images to tell your story. An art journal can be used to capture creative ideas, document your thoughts, feelings and happenings along life’s journey, experiment with new ideas and techniques (one of my favourites), and/or to be present in the act of creating for the sake of creating.

I have always been hesitant to call myself an ‘artist’. The label triggers long buried memories of being a teen-ager and wanting to paint and draw but feeling inadequate in the presence of schoolmates who were amazingly talented. My desire to ‘look perfect’ right from the get-go stymied my willingness to risk sharing my creations. I judged myself ‘not as good as’ and let my desire to express myself through visual media go.

In my twenties, I dated a man who was a hobby artist. He gave me some oil paints and encouraged me to ‘have fun’. Being seriously confined by my desire to ‘look perfect’, my attempts at painting were far from fun, they were painful.

I gave up that idea along with the boyfriend and focused on my writing.

My discourse on ‘who am I’ became restricted to ‘a writer’. An artist I was not.

And then, my eldest daughter was born and from a very early age she displayed an incredible artistic ability. Her stickmen were not just lines and wobbly circles. They were identifiable human and animal creations in lifelike relief.

One of her favourite summer activities involved my lining the deck railings with drawing paper, filling pots with tempera and setting her free to paint the world in all its colours — She was Frida Kahlo in diapers!

And still, I did not pick up a brush until one day, when she was around 15, she asked if we could go to the art store. She wanted to paint and needed supplies. On a whim, I said, “I think I’ll paint with you,” and my love affair began.

There I was, mid-forties discovering a lie I’d told myself as truth wasn’t true. I was an artist.

And the question became, what other things do I tell myself about myself that limit my experiences simply because I tell myself they’re true? What truths do I not challenge in my quest to stay safe in my limiting beliefs?

After over 7 years of continuous blogging (I started my original blog, Recover Your Joy, on March 10, 2007) with a post called, Scooping Up The Shadows), I have learned a great deal, met some amazing people and… allowed myself to write bad again and again and again.

Along the way, I’ve created a body of work that is a reflection of who I am, how I am and where I am in the world.

I am not perfect. I am me.

I learnt that from blogging everyday about what it is that makes my world shiny and bright, even when clouds are blocking the sun, even when I’m feeling fuzzy and blue or sunny and free.

It doesn’t matter how I’m feeling, my commitment is to turn up on the page and find the gift in everything. To write through the bad to find the truth and beauty in every aspect of my life.

It is not about finding the perfection. It’s about experiencing creation. All of it. And the act of creation is not a defined art. It is limitless.

I have been exploring art journalling. Some of my pages please me. Some of them give me pause to ponder the gifts of creation. They give me space to ask myself, how willing am I to let go of my need to ‘look perfect’ to simply be present to the perfection of this moment, right now.

I am learning and I am grateful for the gifts I find in every moment.

I am a writer, an artist, a creative spirit finding her expression through shadow and light.

Namaste.

To see my latest journal page and read the poem (created with it, In The Quiet Hours) click HERE.

Songs of Enchantment

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Louise Gallagher

There was once a little girl who was afraid of colour. To see the golden yellow of the sun, or the deep green velvet of the forest, or the vibrant hues of the garden filled her heart with fear.

Terrified of all the colour in the world, she walked through each day with her eyes squinted against the onslaught of beauty that she could not witness. Fearful of the world of colour that bombarded her senses with every glance, she covered her ears to the songs of enchantment all around and cowered beneath the belief that she was right to cling to her fears.

“Give me black and white,” she pleaded in the darkness of her mind.

And the world closed in around her until all she saw were the shadows between the colours of the world.

The story above appeared in my meditation as tendrils of thoughts whispering their away into substance.

I opened my eyes and let the words flow. Let them form themselves upon the page.

It is what I find most enlivening and mystical about the creative process. When I stop squinting my eyes, when I stop fearing what might be, or not be, magic and wonder happens.

When I fear. When I force or try to push the muse into a container, to direct her into this way or that, the wonder disappears and I am left feeling left out, apart, and let down, telling myself, there is no magic. There is no mystery. there is no possibility of beauty rescuing the light from the darkness.

In fear, I fall into that place where all I see is what I fear. Where all I know is what I expect to be the mundane, the same as, the predictable of life lived in the comfort of the darkness I crave when I let go of seeing the light in every thing and everyone.

At River Rock Studio, immersed in the creative process, without access to Internet or TV, the world fell away into that place where all I knew was its beauty. There was no war, no famine, no hurricane or jet planes being shot down. There was no enemy, no terrorist, no terror.

There was only the muse and me. Connected. Committed. Creative. And in that connection, I was part of the flow of the essential essence of the Universe. I was one with life. One creative expression flowing with the expressions of everyone all around me.

It is rarefied air. Elementary. Essential.

I tell myself, it is impossible to maintain such a connection to the essential nature of the world around me when I live connected to the world through everyday happenings.

“It is much too hard work to continuously live with your senses open to being alive,” the critter hisses. “Don’t tire yourself out. It’s not worth it. The world doesn’t care if you create. The world doesn’t need more creation. It needs more safety. More same old. More conformance to staying the course so it can keep ticking along without interference from the likes of you.”

And I sigh.

I know that critter’s voice. It is the voice of self-denial. Of refusal to see, we are all essential to the evolution of life. We are all creative expressions of amazing grace.

Anything is possible as long as I do not shut my eyes to the colours of the world. As long as I stay open and available to the song’s of enchantment flowing all around, all the magic and wonder and mystery of the world is mine to explore, to see, to know.

It is the beauty of the creative process. The wonder of this space where I let go of fear and fall, fearlessly, into awe knowing, to do my best in the world and for the world, I must allow my best to flow free.

_____________________________________

I have also shared another poem I wrote at River Rock Studio during my art retreat — this one was written when I returned home and carried the memory of the joy of creativity into my weekend. Breathing Under Water.

Day 3: River Rock Studio

Posted on August 6, 2014 by Louise Gallagher

Day 3: River Rock Studio — On the way to finding the path, I found my way.

We painted until midnight. Four adults revelling in the joy of discovery, initiation, anticipation of what happens when we let go of judgement to fall into that place where all we know is what is right before us in the presence of the present of now.

We laughed. Teased. Shared stories. Of art. Art-making. Art-treasuring. We shared ideas. Scraps of paper, “here try this piece there.” “Does anyone have any Green Gold?”

We shared ideas, thoughts, experiments that worked and one’s that didn’t.

We painted medium over magazine pages and set them to dry. We ironed on and peeled back. We worked alone and together. Separately and as one.

And through it all, the muse entwined us in her seductive call to let go, become, allow.

“It’s not only having the information that counts,” Jonathan had told us earlier in the day. “It’s knowing how to share it.”

With yourself. The canvas. One another. The world.

“Art is a visual language,” Jonathan said. “the more we play with it, the more comfortable we become with the elements.”

I am stuck. My piece is not working.

I am attached to the elements, the composition, the path I’ve chosen.

Jonathan sits on the other side of my work table. “Take the elements off the substrate,” he says. “All of them.”

I take them off.

“You have 3 minutes to rearrange them,” he says. “Make a new composition.” And looks at his watch, timing me.

I rearrange the pieces of my collage.

“Do you like it?” he asks.

“It’s okay,” I tell him.

“Do it again,” he says.

And I do. Again and again, each time working to place the elements without thought, without attachment.

“None of it is permanent. None of it,” he says when I have arranged the elements into a final pose.

And in the reconstruction of the composition, I discover harmony in other ways.

There is no one right way to discover the path. There is only the path I take and always, there are many paths to find myself.

I had arisen early to sit outside in the morning light. In silence, I sat and heard the birdsong, the leaves rustling. Somewhere in the distance, I heard a coyote yip, an owl hoot. Somewhere in the distance, there were many things I could not hear. Voices talking. Laughing. Calling to one another, rising to greet the day. Cars passing over asphalt, a bird landing on the still surface of a pond, rippling it for a moment as it touched down.

I knew all these things were happening, somewhere in the distance, and still I sat. Alone. Quiet. At peace in the early morning light.

Another day of wonder and awe awaits. Another day unfolds in the joy of creating without any intention other than to learn and express and experience the gifts the muse has to share.

My poem, Falling Away, is about the journey to find the path. You can read it HERE.