Making Love + Making Art: Learning the Craft of Loving Myself
Recently I realized that my soul — which often seems to have a mind of her own — is craving a juicier life. She’s longing to create, to use my hands and get them dirty with the mud, sweat and tears of genesis, of origin, of the creation story. I mean, we all have our own little creation stories, right? We create the narratives that play out in our lives, participate in them like good little actors under the thumb of a horrid little egotistical director who thinks she knows what everyone wants. In reality, though, that ego only knows fear and only craves control, and she’s not always smart about it either.
So I let my soul out of the cage and let her sing a little. I told my ego to suck it and popped us all in the car to the Montclair Art Museum, where I’d found a class appropriately called, Art for the Non-Artist. And when they said “non-artist” you can be damn sure they were talking about me.
Apparently the artistic talents skip a generation in my family. I know beauty when I see it. In fact, I desire beauty. Beautiful colors. The fiery serenity of a sunset. The curve of a lip. The glitter of shells on sand. But ask me to create something beautiful and you’re shit out of luck because most of my artistic endeavors end up looking like the wrong side of those Nailed It posts that you see going around on social media.
Here is the strange thing, though — here is maybe a tiny little soul-lesson. The fact that I totally suck at art? It freed me to actually enjoy art.
When I sat down at the paint-speckled table, my heart felt more open than it’s ever been. I was there to submit to being taught, as I brought nothing to offer to the table. I was literally the dumbest person in the room (always an excellent position to be in when you want to grow). I had absolutely no control — I was not in charge, I didn’t even get to choose the medium we would be using that day. My only job was to show up and have an experience, and that was something I was totally ready to do.
We were going to create a pop-art style, autumnal themed painting. Pop art uses big, black strokes — sort of like comic book art — and bold colors. The teacher had set up a model on a table of pumpkins and gourds and sunflowers (my favorite), and she taught us how to sketch the shapes of things. Nothing had to be exactly like the model — it was just for inspiration. It wasn’t about recreating reality, it was about creating a new one on your paper. The strokes were big and imperfect and often went off the page, which is a good metaphor for my life these days.
As I painted a hot pink background and a big orange pumpkin, I felt my mouth smile. My joy was quiet and private, but it was there, singing songs with my soul, encouraging us to keep going. I realized that my lack of ability was the thing that kept capitalism at bay here. A few months ago, I saw a post on social media that listed the Signs of Internalized Capitalism and I was shocked to realize I did, indeed, have the virus. I realized I look at almost everything relative to its market value — my work, my writing, even my own body. I measure everything about myself and the work I do according to how it compares to what other people are and are creating. I decide on my own value based on whether people will choose to want me or what I put out in the world. I find my worth based on whether I am worthy of being consumed.
But here in this art class, while I painted a panel of sunshine yellow sunflowers against a bright blue background, I was freed from all that. I didn’t give a shit what someone next to me was painting. No one had ever told me I was good at art, so I was free to just do art. There was no pressure to perform or to get better or to capitalize on the project. Instead, my painting and I could just be. When it was done, I fell in love with it. Also, I fell a little in love with myself.
The next week, I went back filled with excitement. I wanted to fall in love with myself a little more. I’d spent the week thinking about this whole self-love thing and I’d realized that it’s very different from self-care. Self-care is absolutely an outgrowth of self-love, but self-care can also be the drug we use to distract ourselves from, well, ourselves. Exercise is a form of self-care, but if I’m not liking the feelings I’m feeling at any certain time, we all know I can just pop in my earbuds and go for a run to distract myself. Self-love, on the other hand, finds myself as perfect company, feelings and all.
The fact that I love immensely and often fuck up boundaries because of it, for example? It’s something that is both imperfect about me and also something beautiful that I can love like that. I know I need to travel the borderlands of my emotions and shore up the fences in the places where the beast gets out, but this will just allow me to love in healthier ways, and to receive love, the rare times the real thing is offered, in healthier ways, too. Maybe it will even help me to understand when I’m actually being loved, and when I’m just being manipulated. Spell casters are everywhere, and I’ve always had a thing for magicians.
When I got to the paint-speckled table that second week, the teacher said we were going to create some zentangle designs. Anything zen sounded perfect to me, given that in this particular period of time, my life has basically crumbled around me, and everything I thought was true and trustworthy basically wasn’t, and people who are the targets of my deepest (and, probably, most dysfunctional) love are leaving in droves for a multitude of reasons. The ship is sinking and apparently I’m that captain who will go down right along with it. So I figure I might as well love myself into being able to swim, and I was hoping some zentangle — whatever the fuck that was — would help.
Turns out zentangle is totally relaxing. It’s doodling with a purpose — but not a capitalistic one, rest assured. After we played around with making some totally unruly swirls on a tiny paper tile, the teacher said we could grab a picture and fill it in with a zentangle design. I was immediately drawn to a beautiful portrait of a wolf.
I traced her, using transfer paper to transfer the soul of her onto my paper. I stared into her beautiful eyes and remembered the dream I had. I had no idea where to start, and as usual, started too small. The teacher offered some well intended guidance, and it stopped me in my tracks. Frozen, frustrated, all I could do was look into her eyes and ask her to show me. Soon enough, lines began to flow. Appropriately enough, they are strange and unequal because, like me, she is asymmetrical. She is on one side, one way, on the other, a different way. She is angular and has unpredictable lines, boundaries that are open where you least expect it, and shapes that do not always make the most perfect of sense. They are confounding, and the zen surely does get tangled up in her.
But this is okay. I left her, unfinished, in class, though I desperately wanted to take her home. I left her and will return next week to draw out her spirit and line it with my pen. I’ll let her lead me. I’ll let her tell the story, be the genesis, narrate this creation story into whoever it is meant to be. I’ll let her show me the way love is my rebellion and my offering, my very own origin story. Most importantly, I’ll remember that even though I may leave her, I will always, always return.
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