The Heart of an Artist

January 21, 2010
I have done a lot of paintings in my life. From childhood, I tried to capture stuff...the essence of cities was my passion....abstract...great licence....I painted with friends and family....sometimes it became passionate to create a new form...a new picture of my inner scape of something. My mother taught me the art of loving, living and art itself....she and I spent many hours with canvas and water colors. She taught me that the artist has heart.

I left that art twenty five years ago....haven't painted since.....words have been my palette....poetry, lyrics and passionate essays about the essential life issues as I have experienced them as a College President....

Recent events have shown me the inner world of the 'heart of the artist'. It is a wide and open canvas of amazing shapes and forms and emotions.

These people are destined, too, to have life purpose, maybe even something that represents something quite commercial as a venture, like selling their art, making friends thru art, being in a community of art people who share something quite deep.

One of them recently said she just wanted a week, a single week, to paint, nothing else.....what is this passion?

It seems to be the heart of the artist. Wanting wide open scapes, freedom to escape the bounds of 'normal life' with jobs and family and culture....to be totally free...to fly like a bird....and to free fall with passion and love.

Not all art is full of such happiness. That is the struggle. To be free. To grow up into something of the fully mature creator artist....

I cannot muster that passion as an artist with paint and canvas and form and shape. I cannot even put words to geometric shapes and organic or inorganic forms....but I know it when I see it....it is pure passion...the true heart of the artist waiting for his or her life moment of discovery....even if it is just with a select few.....those who love the work of an artist, understand the artist and feel that same passion....

Athleetes speak of the 'zone'. I think artists also are in the zone of something wide and wild and free when they paint....the heart of the artist is struggling to put paint to canvas to say what is deepest in their heart....a love for life and living....

I felt that when I painted, too. Many years ago. Now I feel it in my words that I put down for others maybe to understand and take home.

Every day, every canvas is new. Like a birthday. Happy birthday to the artists out there....every day is like a birthday with presents and yet you are getting older, but your your heart gives us the gift of freedom, joy and expression.

Blue flash? Yes, it is all connected in this global society....the vision of your life as an artist is wrapped nicely into the package of who you are, your heart and soul. Your destiny to create. The heart of the artist today we celebrate and they have made all of our civilizations so great and worth the time we spend to say who we are..........