The Artist’s Flow & Loving-Work

Creates the Capacity for Negative Capability

Letting go, Readiness, Spontaneity

Art is not a thing. It’s a way.  Elbert Hubbard

In her Loving-Playfulness, mindful flowering, the Awakened Child has come to know some of her own Pain and Self-deception yet, too, to hold to her Heart, perceiving what is True and cherishing the Beautiful. In her own time, she develops into an active actor on the stage, until, curious, she leaves her garden home ready to explore the forest and the mysterious lands beyond. Here, she learns to Work. To make something happen, to fashion something extraordinary.

As her energies become focused, developing into daily practices, she naturally becomes the Artist energized by the Flowing energy of Loving-Work. Animated by this force, she entrusts herself to a lifelong journey of creation.

Why this painting?

Inquisitiveness nudges our Artist into Negative Capability.  The egoic grasping is dampened and the focus is deepened. In service of the Work, she finds an ability to let go, to move beyond resistance, to be spontaneous.

Inside out:

Because many of us were not born into love and acceptance, we’re blocked. There’s a screen, a barrier that disconnects us from our authenticity. As a result, we might put something together, but not our art. Often what we end up spending our days doing—the “work” we do—is predictable and fashioned for approval. Disconnected from the Awakened Child, numbed, dissociated, there’s a resignation to endeavoring at what we have always known. We abandon our Work because we have lost the playful energy, or, in our fear, we have failed to develop a meaningful practice. To avoid criticism, we stop being spontaneous. We choreograph our steps on the stage, memorizing them and practicing them. Actions get reduced to reproducing and manufacturing what feels safe.

If this has become true for you, foster some creative play and embrace the notion that you are not the actual creator, at best a co-creator; let art pass through you as if from “the Muse,” arriving by inspiration or spirit. If you have been restrained, use methods that allow for spontaneity and “aha” moments. Collage can be a way toward liberation if you are doing visual art. If you have already experienced Loving-Work in a state of Flow then you know it starts with getting loose, rather than controlling tensely for an outcome. Imagine yourself as a vessel and vehicle for something larger.

Upside down:

Without the Artist’s Negative Capability, we face the danger of becoming a dutiful Worker, Working for Love, or settling for recognition if not for Love, engaging in nothing but drudgery, losing inspiration, passion, and play’s lighter emotional touch. The sense of a living presence in and around us fades. We lose our openness and willingness to experiment or to stop and rest. Until we feel depleted and stuck. And then, like so many of us in the Upside- down Fallen World, we work ourselves to death.