Be moved by art

Is inspiration motivated from within or is it nurtured by our relationships with others? This is a question that peaked my interest recently after doing some reading on the subject. The first, was the September issue of the “Ladies Home Journal” titled “The Long Good Bye,” about a mother who confronts the feelings that come from an empty nest and having to redefine who she is and what motivates her. She begs the question of the roles we fulfill as daughters, mothers, wives and if we are internally motivated from the roles we fulfill or do we feel inspiration from a place that is uniquely our own?

In contrast to this article, I read a book titled “Journal of a Solitude,” by May Sarton about an artist who goes out of her way to create in solitude with little interaction with others in complete isolation from the world and all of its distractions. She feels that it is only in this place she can truly create in a way that is authentically her own.

As a mother of two small children I was drawn to both women. Seeing the changes coming as a mother and knowing in my heart that as the article was so appropriately titled “The long good-bye” is  really what the mother-child relationship is all about.  However, I have to be honest the thought of creating in complete isolation did make me wonder if I would be a more accomplished artist with all the time and freedom to create without the distractions of everyday life.

So how to be within the world, meet the changes that meet us where we are while maintaining the relationships that help us define who we are? For now at least.  Because, as those precious people in our life change we change too. Everything is a part of this constant change. all of it.

So where do we go from here? As in my case, the little ones leave the roost 15 years or so from now? Who do I become as a woman, an artist? Were they my true inspiration? Was I motivated to create from them alone?

Yet, there is something deep within me that in my opinion is untouched. It is to be what Aristotle called “The unmoved mover.” Art can lead us to the place where we are internally motivated yet willing to move as life moves us. So, instead of a “room of one’s own,” maybe it is more realistic to have the space of one’s own.” art can provide this space. All of our feelings, and experiences from life we can process them in our own time as a way to reflect or process it.Every gesture we make on paper has movement and change. Each stroke is unique to who we are and where we are in our life.  To access this flow is how we can meet life as it changes and to hopefully move with it rather than against it. Art helps us meet who we are becoming right in the moment we put it on paper. And that is just the beginning of where art will lead us if we let it. Because, right when we think we have made our mark it changes, the paint flows together, the paper dries and it means something more than we had originally intended.

Alisha K. Duckett

Artist, Owner Healing Art Images