Waking up from hibernation

It’s been a while since my last blogpost. Months, actually. I was hibernating, trying to escape those dark winter days. But to be honest I was also hiding from the world.

All that’s happening worldwide overwhelms me. I’m worried and anxious and I feel completely useless. The only thing I’m good at is painting, and art is not going to resolve wars, is it? It even feels frivolous and ignorant to go into my studio and create, while so many others are losing their home, scared for their safety.

Amie McNee’s answer helped me tremendously. (See her book ‘We need your art’.) I love her logical approach to this problem. She says creative people have to create, especially in hard times, because:

1.       A piece of art has the potential of making someone feel better.

2.       If you were born to create, the act of creating will make you feel better. Feeling better makes you kinder to others. And there is never enough kindness.

Easy: the answer is (always) to do what you were born to do.

Her simple reasoning woke me up out of my hibernation. Slowly I started going back to my studio, doing some collage, and then some painting. It was funny to see what I chose to paint: light. Without realizing it I painted what I desperately needed. And Amie is right: it makes me feel better. And I really hope it brightens someone else’s day…