Heartsong Studio

      
Do you toil and sweat over artwork, while envying other artists who seem to just create effortlessly ?  See if you can find a Valentine in this article by Celeste Varley.

“The Hard Work of Becoming Spontaneous”

Do you remember seeing those love scenes in old movies, where the lovesick Romeo stands under the damsel’s window serenading his heart out ?  Love came so easily in the olden days, at least in our
fantacies.

Really effective works of art which grab your attention at a glance,appear to be made spontaneously too.  When you see these works, do you automatically envision the artist standing at the easel, sort of
throwing on the paint with wild abandon ?

You might also imagine that this is a kind of talent, which is probably born intact in a “real” artist, and which you apparently
don’t have.  Else, why would you need to struggle to achieve any work with meaning ?

It all looks so easy.  Spontaneity is a lot like Love.  In order to receive it, to reflect it back, you have to be able to give it. 

Have you ever admired a consummate actor ?  The kind who seems to be just being himself spontaneously ?  Or a wonderfully fluid dancer drifting across the stage as though on angel wings ? 

Actors go through long periods of learning to inhabit a role.  The impressive roles are actually not acted, in the sense that the
actor is not pretending.  Actors need to find an actual experience that closely relates.  The emotions they show are entirely real. 

When an actor cries, the tears are real, though the situation may not be the one being portrayed.  He has to search out his past experiences with as similar a feel as possible, bring it to heart, and then actually live that emotion for real. That’s why good
acting is so convincing - because it isn’t pretending. 

Easy flowing artwork is effective for the same reason. It also has a long history behind it, you can be sure.  Like universal Love, it doesn’t just pop out willy-nilly every once in awhile. Any effective art has to be the product of a real response of artists to the subjects they feature.   It only looks easy.

Love only comes from our Inner Being which has found the profound value in everything, also usually the result of experience and growth.  Many poets have extolled the pain and virtue of true love.

Often this comes after many years of hard work.  Just like fluid dancers, who come off stage and bathe their raw feet, they aren’t
hiding the pain of experience, but rather embracing it.

Real mastery results in art that looks easy.  But not with tricks. Tricks are phoney. To pursue tricky techniques is to waste valuable time, and to focus on the wrong end of the stick.  No lover worth wooing would fall for cheap come-on lines either.

Masters in any art do not make a goal of looking easy, they work long years, with discipline, so it becomes “easy” in a sense. 

All artists are practising what they love.  To do what you love is to come closer to being your authentic self.
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Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.

Does the mention of discipline clash with your idea of art ?  Successful artists practice discipline all the time.  Like Lovers,
they don’t wait until Cupid or the Muse is upon them.  They go to the work regularly, five or more days a week, with an open heart.

This is the reason why art societies or groups who meet on a regular basis are so effective.  They support one another in their resolve to stick at it.  Like-minded people are also great providers of unbiased observation of your work, when you ask.

But most of the hard work of becoming spontaneous grows out of solitude and long years of ongoing introspection and growth.
Life’s experiences, if we can learn from them, are made for growing wings.  A happy balance of solitary work and sharing makes for on-going growth.

What artist hasn’t found a lovely passage in the work of another and longed to be able to make use of it ?  Envy is the sincerest
form of flattery.  Envy and flattery are about outer appearances.
To admire the art of another is one thing.  But to find your own meanings is to make space for the love from within.

Inspirations come and go.  They are like crushes, or being besmitten.  They don’t last, though they certainly can refresh.
The more you welcome them, the more they will come your way. 

But, like butterflies, they will elude you if you chase them.  Yet turn your attention to other things, and they will come and
alight softly on your shoulder.

Inspiration can be the nectar that eases the work that you love, towards spontaneity.
“May the beauty you love be what you do; there are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the earth.”  Rumi

Celeste Varley
“Oh! for a horse with wings” -Shakespeare
Let our hearts sing and take flight!