The emotional life of Beauty
Letting the nuances take over
As I return to the studio, settling in from the BIG move, some teaching, an art show, and a very emotional election, I am attempting to gather thoughts on the act of creating.
I am specifically trying to feel my way into creating beauty while feeling disappointment and frustration.
My call is similar to Michael's. I realize that the answer is sitting right in my studio, waiting for me to show up.
Create beauty.
As I climb up the emotional scale, I am reaching for something that feels better to lean into as I create.
I don't inherently believe I am on the earth to create jarring, wake-you-up political art. Someone else might be, though, and I am ok with that.
I am called to wake people up through the lens of beauty, which can take on all sorts of forms. For me, beautiful moments happen when something is ignited inside of you.
I see these small flaming moments happen when I meet people who see my art. First, I get the rare satisfaction of creating something that resonates, and then I see a look pass across their faces. I have learned to stay silent (a learning curve for me), and I listen to them put words to describe what they are feeling.
This last time in Brooklyn, someone came into my booth, clutched their shirt at their heart, and said, "This art just makes me feel." We both followed it up with a sheepish laugh, and they added, "I don't know what I am feeling, but I am just feeling."
What a privilege to create something that connects.
I'll be honest: This can be hard to do with a painter's simple tools. No movie director is calling "action," no orchestra with sheet music, and, most importantly, no backup dancers!
Just marks, shapes, shadows, and color, all meant to reach another soul who wants to "feel" in a way they can't explain. This is why the artist's profession can seem like a calling.
How does this calling look moving forward? How has it looked in the past?
I realized in the last two weeks that I have created what I would consider beautiful art when I have felt melancholy and hopelessness—the years of COVID, watching as mothers fled for safety with their children when Russia invaded Ukraine. Heartbreak as I see lives turned upside down because of hurricanes. I don't take every pain on the planet into the studio, but sometimes I do.
During these moments, I responded by creating artwork. The best ones weren't planned; they were just felt.
Did the tension I felt at the time make for a more nuanced, beautiful piece of art?
I didn't name the work in direct alignment with the emotion I felt in those moments because I recognized the need to climb out of these emotions. I did, however, grasp their value and how they could not help but add to my experience.
I am still working through my emotional responses to the election. I don't know what pocket to put my anger in. I have never been particularly good at stuffing it away, and that never seems to help anyway. So, I am trying to lay it down, work with it, shape it, and mold it into something.
Beauty can mingle with raw emotion. It doesn't have to shrink back.
Beauty is inherent to the Universe and has an emotional life. It weaves through our life stories, helping us slip in and out of grief and frustration and guiding us to a better understanding of ourselves.
Until next time, Monica Lee Rich
As mentioned in our last post, 3 Gables (which we have lovingly dubbed our home and studios) is coming along, and we are putting together a studio release soon!
We can’t wait to share it with you.
