In today’s world we talk so much about needing to be strong and brave, we encourage those we love around us.
We tell them to hold their boundaries, to tell people like it is, to fight for what you want, stand your ground. I look at that and I surmise… that this requires a lot of energy and sometimes that energy is in contrast to who we really are.
So I ask you the question, what do you require to be brave and strong?
I can answer from the women and men that I admire is that you need Vulnerability in order to be strong. What an irony. When we are vulnerable we allow ourselves to be seen as we really are. It’s as if allowing oneself to be vulnerable lowers the veil of the mask that we have created for the outside world and behind the mask there you lie beautiful and raw. I see your flaws, the lines of your face, your fear and surprise, but it’s in there too, that I find your beauty. As an artist I don’t see beauty in perfection, I see it in the grit, humanity and in all the unfinished parts of us.
The people I admire who live full lives have a healthy dose of ego, they generally work hard and have it sussed and they are prepared to take a gamble. Gambling (not in the true sense) takes vulnerability, it means that you put your chips down and you play the game of life, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
Some people choose not to sit at the table of real life, they don’t pitch up, they don’t risk much, the fear of risk is too great, I never really get to know them because they don’t bring much to the table and often they give off a feeling of being untouchable, but they are not, they are just running shitless.
As an artist or creative you spend your life creating things that have been gestating in your mind. One day you create it and then you put it out there and you wait as others judge it, love it or hate it. Does it matter? does it matter what they say, yes it does… my ego loves to hear that it’s wonderful, but I know that I have no choice other than to pitch up for myself everyday. I owe it to me, to take the risk, because if I die with all those paintings or dreams locked inside me, I will not have lived.
How do you show your children how to live if you yourself don’t feel alive?
I urge you in these hard times to show up for yourself everyday, I urge you to be vulnerable, real and raw, put the chips on the table.
I urge you to live a life that colours outside the lines, a life that moves away from black and white and becomes a multitude of colour.