"What is to give light must endure burning." —Viktor Frankl
That quote recently appeared in my meditation app. It's been pinging around my brain ever since. The concept of burning makes me think of struggle, sacrifice, death, pain, injury, being used up. But burning also generates light. Without light, we can't see. Without light, we don't evolve eyes to see (as I talked about in last week's newsletter).
Does light exist without darkness? How else can we discern what IS light, without its opposite to compare it to?
"Map of the Butterfly" progress shot. It's starting to look like something...
Life has taught me that my most painful losses bring the most valuable gifts. The struggles make me stronger so I can endure bigger challenges. My darkest moments build lived wisdom that I can share with others to help them through similar experiences. In fact, it seems that the whole point of everything IS to struggle, so we can grow and evolve—not just individually, but as a whole.
My friend Jeff, who brought me into the world of Vedic meditation, says that all of Nature is Evolution. God/Spirit/Nature is constantly evolving. And isn't that what we're doing as artists? We translate what we see into our craft. We improve our craft so we can see more deeply. Whether we're doing it solely for our own inner connections, or to connect and share with the world around us, we're expressing ourselves for a reason. And that reason involves making connections.
A LiDar map of a riverbed, showing the many paths the water has taken over time.
I believe we're creating in order to evolve Spirit. We observe and comment on what light reveals. Whether we're rendering a bowl of fruit or expressing our feelings, we're connecting with a source of light/insight/seeing. The connection between Creator and creation is creativity.
The butterfly has to struggle to break free from the cocoon so its wings will be strong enough to fly. If someone comes along and cracks the shell open too soon, the butterfly won't survive.
And so we must burn. We struggle with the craft—how to make the medium represent what we're trying to express. We struggle with the voice—what we're trying to say. We struggle with the commerce of it all—finding ways to continue in the face of material obligations (paying bills, feeding family, maintaining energy) and others' opinions (viewers, art market, clients.). The struggle leads to new skills. And it generates light where before there was darkness.
Art Heals
On February 9 in the middle of the night, federal workers quietly removed the LGBTQ flag from the pole in front of Stonewall Inn in NYC. Stonewall is where a 1969 uprising against police brutality kicked off the civil rights movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer people. It's also a national monument, thanks to Barack Obama, so it's under the federal government's purview. In the past year, Trump's administration has taken all references to trans, queer, and bisexual off the website. Now the flag was taken down.
The artist Gilbert Baker designed the flag in 1978 for San Francisco's first Pride parade. He created it to replace the pink triangle symbol, which Nazis forced gay men to wear during the Holocaust. The colorful flag was meant to evoke joy and inclusion, not trauma.
Three days after the Stonewall flag removal, New Yorkers raised it again. It flies there still.
"When all else fails, art is the ultimate weapon." --Gilbert Baker
Gilbert Baker created a mile-long pride flag for NYC's 1994 Pride parade.
With love and light,
Maggie
PS Whenever you’re ready to start working with me, here are three ways:
2. Want to learn the basics of drawing and find your unique voice, without pressure or doubt? Sign up for my 6-week online workshop, "Draw Like You Mean It." Lessons include weekly office hours and one-on-one guidance from me.
3. Not sure where to begin? Feeling shy, insecure, doubting your path? Schedule a free 30-minute consultation and I’ll ask you the single most important question to help you become the artist you’ve always wanted to be.
