Heartsong Studio

 

After spending so long making one form of art, can you just chuck it all and change to another media ?

If your heart were longing for a difference, how would you feel about changing ? If you like to cook, this article might offer you a recipe for facing some fears.

How do you handle the fear of change ?

A client of mine has spent years making wonderful quilts, and has developed her work to a fine art. She re-discovered a softness in paint during classes that she had been missing in her work with fabric. But the prospect of changing at this late date, is understandably daunting.

You might have “switched horses midstream” before, and found it terribly difficult. Did it feel like starting all over from scratch ? Maybe you felt that you’d wasted all that time, effort and money.

The Persian poet Rumi wrote: “To hold fast is a sure sign of unripeness.” If a fruit doesn’t let itself be picked from the tree, it usually means it isn’t ripe yet.

When you have fears about something that means a lot to you, it’s usual to try and fix it with our minds as quickly as possible. It’s painful, so we try to stop the pain. But “usual” isn’t necessarily “natural”.

Fears are natural. If you can be gentle with yourself awhile, you could go inside and allow your fears to have their say.

Fear of the unknown is a reaction of your conscious mind. Your heart is the instrument that is designed for facing the unknown, not your everyday mind. As in cooking, the end result can sometimes be unknown.

Have you ever built a shepherd’s pie ? It’s made layer by layer, more often than not, utilizing what you have on hand. One layer rests on the other to finally make a mixture of tastes and textures that is unique every time.

Could your first foray into artwork be the bottom layer ? Maybe you started with watercolours. After some years, you may have become hemmed in by the limitations of this disciplined media. Or, you might have become tired of having to cut mats, buy glass, and make frames to preserve them properly.

Does this mean, if you switch to modelling clay, acrylics, or stone sculpture, that none of the skills you learned in watercolours will be used again ?

Aside from technical handling, all the real artistic considerations of form, composition, colour, expression, and meaning, apply to everything you do. Rather than being disloyal or disrespectful, applying the skill you’ve already developed to a new area shows gratitude and respect.

Maybe you could start in a new medium without throwing away all your old media. You could wait and see if it grows on you. You could always come back to the old one.

Matter of fact, this might be a good idea , from time to time. Even if you do get enthused about a new medium, it could give you a measure of how you’ve grown to revisit the old place.

Most shepherd’s pies have more than one layer. Some of the most soul satisfying ones have many layers. So no need to rule out other changes ahead of time.

Closing one phase in your life’s journey isn’t the end. Even death isn’t the end. Look at nature and you’ll see that things don’t end, they change, and evolve.

Change can be scary. Sometimes it seems too risky, and some people try never to make changes. Other people use change as a way of avoiding depth, which is their bigger fear, and constantly change.

Different ways of dealing with change range from stuck-in-concrete all the way to flighty superficiality.

You can make a shepherd’s pie the exact same way every single time. Or you can just throw together whatever you have regardless of the taste in the end. In all likelihood though, you probably make a shepherd’s pie with some combination of these extremes.

You might imagine the blend of tastes and use what you have on hand, and also go out and buy a missing ingredient which would possibly make the whole thing really zing.

The more you can find the connection with your heart, the easier it will be to know what is right for you. There are no rational guidelines to use. Whatever resonates in your heart is the call which you can trust every time.

 

Did this article resonate in your heart ?

How do you make your shepherd’s pie.