Artist, know thyself!

There are watercolor purist.  They have rules when it comes to painting.  No other medium is allowed to mix with the watercolors.  Water and paint get added to paper in certain ways, many ways, but there are rules.  I admire (and quite frankly, I fear) those painters.  There’s a passion to their craft that I’ll never achieve.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore watercolors, but I’m no purist.  I should explain now that I do not have a degree nor higher education in art.  My early years were spent drawing, using markers and crayons.  Oh, I could name every single crayon in the box and no, not only as a child, but as a teen.  One time, as a young girl, I  drew my grandfather, Paps.  I recall how he went on and on about the details in the drawing.  The memory glows warm for me.  As a teen, I was more prone to drawing D&D scenes.  The fairy world still beckons my muse.  

But a degree in art, not I.  I do have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology with a minor in Psychology.  I also have a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management, with an additional concentration in Human Resources.  I love to learn.  But a formal education in art?  No.  My art is untrained by convention, but deeply fluent in feeling.

My muse went silent as life makes demands.  I thank my son and cancer for bringing art back.  Son and Cancer, odd combination.  My son, because he was taking advanced art classes, making my fingers twitch.  The muse nudged.  Cancer, because art journaling allowed me to vomit the pain on paper and create something from it.  Raw and real, I would smear paint, tear the pages of music, add drips and slashes on the canvas.  I allowed the chaos to echo from inside and trusted it to carry meaning.  Art was the sunlight and lightening and it kept the darkness of depression from crowding my life.  It wasn’t just healing, it was painting the wound, giving it a place to breath and be seen. The hurt didn’t have to hide in the shadows.   When the storm would not be silenced, I added thunder and rain to the canvas. Art will heal, but not with control, rather through surrender.

Artist, Know Thyself.. with no formal training and so many styles.  What am I?

There are countless mediums.. leave me a kitchen sink and you’ll find parts of it on the canvas!  I want the watercolors to howl and the layers to whisper a declaration of emotions.  The paint brush is the ritual, the pallet knife is the reckoning and the artwork is the restoration.  

I am a rebel, an untamed, untrained artist with a feeling of reverence for all mediums.  

I am ~ a feral artist.  

Wild Should Wild Remain.  My work is not polished.  My muse wants the paint to pulse - take root, deep in the earth, channel the heartbeat of the trees and flowers, the memory of the wind and rivers, weaving the soul to the brush strokes and slashes.

Feral Artist, I am.  I believe every thorn, every seed, has a story.  My art will tarnish and stain, stitch and heal with the hum of life.  I won’t create to fix or to only make beauty, but to remember and cherish.  That is the feral way, by any style, any medium; art will find itself.