Bigness

Photo of the Creative Juices Arts Studio in Oakland, California.

I used to paint big. Like big mama big! Like drown yourself in goodness big!! Like wowsers-bo-bowsers big! Well, maybe not that big. But big!

When I was fresh out of high school and right into Art school, I painted big---I wouldn't have thought of it any other way. I used to build my own canvases and slop paint around with huge ol' house painter brushes.

I used to paint big.

And big is how I used to dream. And big is how I used to walk, and talk, and smoke my cigarettes. Big is how I stayed out late. Big is how I fell in LOVE. Big is how I got my heart broken. Big is how I let some challenges of life beat me to the ground. Big is how I started to feel other Artists were. Big is how I wished I could be. Big is something I started to feel would never happen to me.

But then all of a sudden I remembered....I used to paint big.

I started to look at my recent paintings, and realized each one was a big painting waiting to come out. I started to listen to my heart and heard big laughter buried deep under all that big doubt. I took a long, hard look at this big body I've been trapped in and felt my bigness was being hidden by a shroud.

And when I got to the part about my soul, an earthquake shattered my expectations-- tore down my self-constructed walls. Suddenly a space opened up, and my bigness came bursting out.

(Chris Zydel wrote a beautiful blog post HERE about my experience at her workshop--and even included a video testimony by moi!)