Lost in the woods, I wanted to quit but carried on

She still has me. Is still gripping me in her velvet gloves, massaging my creative muscles and inspiring words and images to flow.

The muse and I had quite the affair last night.

Last night, I tried to defy her.

I wanted to give up on this particular image. It just wasn’t coming.

I was painting to a different quote and this image was not measuring up. It was messy. Disconnected. Chaotic. I hated it.

I told her I was done. That this piece I was working on just wasn’t working. It was over.

She lovingly held me, soothed my wounded ego, my defeatist attitude and said, “When you’re lost in the woods, keep going towards the light.”

I threw caution to the wind and dug back in.

At the point of turning back.

I was already painting over another piece I’d created last year that wasn’t particularly pleasing.

What did I have to lose? Leave it in a state of dissatisfaction? Or let go, carry on and be open to whatever happened?

That’s the thing about the #ShePersisted series I’ve been working on — they are nearly all created on old pieces that were not completed — I just didn’t know it at the time of originally painting them!

In most of them, the past informs the present. It shows through in pieces of colour, texture, design and even those sections you can’s see, they are lying under the topcoat, informing the context.

Like life. We can’t actually see the past, yet, it’s always there. Informing. Contextualizing. Shadowing. The present is a statement of the past. And sometimes, even when we think we’re done with what was,, if we haven’t created beauty and value from it, it will come back into the present allowing us another opportunity to create better.

Last night, while working on the 12th painting for the #ShePersisted series, I wanted to give up.

What a mess I thought.

And then the muse whispered into my heart, “Keep going,” she said. “You’re not done yet.”

I’m glad I listened. I persisted.

The quote became:  “They said to be careful. She threw caution to the wind.”

The finished piece is on my website HERE.