the war of art to Hamptons Fine Art Fair, July 14-17, Southampton, NY
work driven by heart, with the images I need to share. These images are underwater. These are image that have to be created, art that has to be made, with a desire stronger than any obstacles. It is a little scary, as new ventures are full of risks and leaps yet I am ready to share them.
In 1980, I read Steven Pressfields, The War of Art. for an intro to Art class at Rutgers. Nineteen years old, both afraid and strong willed, yet mostly unsure of who I was. A product of my childhood; fearful that I would fail. So immature as I was viewing and judging my parents not knowing then flaws are human that life offers a series of ebbs and flow of successes with failures. As an artist, no one around me reflected this was a path towards success and something I could do. To be truthful, no one reflected that I could be anything but not good enough. I did not know then, people sometimes view criticism as caring.
Yet I needed to create, always have. As a girl learning needlepoints, crewel, sewing, putting craft kits together, moving, making, doing things. In school, could not stay still until art clas and gym as I grew older applied art, graphics, and fine arts. As a college freshman I found the camera - that felt like home.
A spring 6 week 101 photography class (after coming home from a freshman year in Kansas City where the idea of communications, art journalism and physical therapy careers all swirled in my head) at Brookdale Community College with Stewart Thomas, thrilled me and encouraged me in a way one never forgets. I immediately got a photo jourmalist job at a local bi weekly for little pay. The following fall, transfered to Rutgers with classes all over New Brunchwich, NJ; I hated it and most of my classes even the photography and art classes. It was a Cook campus course (loved the professor, wish I could remember his name), part darkroom and english writing course entitled the history of photography which studied the beginning of photography and darkroom techniques. Hating everything almost everything at Rutgers, went back to community college in the search of how to make money as a photographer. I found portrait work, studied and grew.
Always photographing printing, to become better, to find the best processes and techniques to be a better photographer artist has been the path.
The truth is, people always who told me I wasn’t enough whether good enough, making enough have always been there. Eventually the lack of support and believe caused me to run from them. It took along time to realize I was looking in the wrong direction. It was me who needed to believe in myself. It has just taken four decades for me to understand, the art comes from me, not from others. So The War of Art.
Someone who cares for me once was trying to make me understand - “all the time you spend doing photography and my portrait business is too much, what you make is just a enough to be called a hobby as you do not make enough money, it pennies” then told me you could open a pizza restaurant anything would bring you more than this for all the effort I put in. You would be very successful with anything else, buy a Jersey Mike’s sub business.”
My response, “what you do not understand If I was not photographing and printing, building and rebuilding, working and making it better, I would just be making art in another way, it is what I do, it is who I am. If you do not understand this you do not love me.”
This confrontation stayed with me. I have understand the belief comes from me.
Portrait photography has been way to combine my need to create with other needs… to make a desired product and to take care of my family. As an artist, this allowed the focus on family in life and work. Yet more importantly, the desire to be the best artist photographer I can has continued as my work keep me in photography, to print, to create, to learn, to become better, to product.
Superstorm Sandy happened when my youngest child was a senior in high school, my oldest was expecting and my life was changing. Water has always moved me, the storm did not frighten me, it awed me and pushed me to change. It was then I became to see, envision images of beauty under the surface.
The grace and power of water to cause change.
This last decade, I have allowed myself to be the artist, with work driven by heart, with the images I need to share. These images are underwater. These are image that have to be created, art that has to be made, with a desire stronger than any obstacles. It is a little scary, as new ventures are full of risks and leaps yet I am ready to share them. Come see my my works at Hamptons Fine Art Fair, July 14-17, Southampton, NY
I Love You, I'm Sorry, Please Forgive Me, Thank You - Simple Steps to Healing: Ho'oponopono
It is a good time to think about goodness
Hoʻoponopono is a Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness
It is more time at home even though it would be wonderful to be planning a Hawaiian vacation… keeping ourselves safe while honoring the people in our lives this holiday season is important. Sometimes it can be difficult to be at home feeling a bit stagnate or challenged, I thought maybe reading about goodness. It could be helpful.
Ho’oponopono
defined in the the Hawaiian dictionary
(a) "To put to rights; to correct, revise, adjust, amend, rectify, tidy up make orderly or to make ready, as canoemen preparing to catch a wave."
(b) "Mental cleansing: family conferences in which relationships were set right (hoʻoponopono) through prayer, discussion, confession, repentance, and mutual restitution and forgiveness.”
Literally, hoʻo is defined as goodness
Ponopono is defined as to correct
Hawaiian scholar Nana Veary in her book, Change We Must: My Spiritual Journey wrote that ho'oponopono was a practice in Ancient Hawaii.Ritual of Hoʻoponopono corrects, restores and maintains good relationships among family members and with their God. The process begins with prayer.
I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.
(a) "To put to rights; to correct, revise, adjust, amend, rectify, tidy up make orderly or to make ready, as canoemen preparing to catch a wave."
(b) "Mental cleansing: family conferences in which relationships were set right (hoʻoponopono) through prayer, discussion, confession, repentance, and mutual restitution and forgiveness.” referring Hoʻoponopono teachings.
In the book, Zero Limits, Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len shares that Ho’opononpono cured the criminally insane patients without him ever seeing any of them. This is based on Len's idea of taking responsibility for everyone's actions, not only for one's own.
If one would take complete responsibility for one's life, then everything one sees, hears, tastes, touches, or in any way experiences would be one's responsibility because it is in one's life.The problem would not be with our external reality, it would be with ourselves. Total Responsibility, according to Hew Len, advocates that everything exists as a projection from inside the human being.
Simple Steps to Healing: Ho'oponopono
I Love You, I'm Sorry, Please Forgive Me, Thank You
The story about a Dr Luw that the psychologist would study an inmate's chart and then look within himself to see how he created that person's illness. As he improved himself, the patient improved.
I have always believed that I am responsible for what I think and do and that most people think this way. We're responsible for what we do, not what anyone else does.
Hawaiian therapist named is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years, he never saw a patient, he only looked at their files. That ward where they kept the criminally insane was dangerous. While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal.
"After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being allowed to walk freely," he told me. "Others who had to be heavily medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no chance of ever being released were being freed, ”I was simply healing the part of me that created them," he said.
According to Dr. Len
Total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life – simply because it is in your life – is your responsibility. If you take complete responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility because it is in your life.
This means that terrorist activity, the president, the economy – anything you experience and don't like – is up for you to heal. They don't exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside you. The problem isn't with them, it's with you, and to change them, you have to change you. This idea is “new age.”
Yet ho'oponopono means loving yourself. If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you want to cure anyone – you do it by healing you.
According to the Doctor, all he did was repeat to himself
I'm sorry, I love you, Please Forgive Me, Thank You
Dr. Len suggests a four-stage process for this ho'oponopono work. Whenever a place for healing presents itself in your life, open to the place where the hurt resides within you. After identifying this place, with as much feeling as you can, say the below four statements:
I love you.
I'm sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
There is challenge in my life, I am giving this try. Silently I am saying, "I'm sorry,'“ "I love you,” “Please forgive” and “Thank You.’
I do not know what will happen here. Whatever happens I hope love will be part of it.
