Feeling the Warmth

I have been struggling with a lot of doubt and confusion over the past 3 months. If you read my blog regularly, you may have noticed: I haven’t been posting so much lately. I have taken a big step back from my art business as I try and understand what’s going on. I have had many ups and downs over the past four years of making art and running a creative business, but never during that time have I had such a long period without creative direction. I’ll be honest: it’s been very scary at times. I put my art shop on a break for a while and wondered if I would ever reopen it. I have spent a lot of time asking the question: Is this it? Is this the end of me selling art? I knew I would never turn away from art-making, I love it too much, but selling art and art as a business, maybe this was the end.

Then a couple of days ago after a series of circumstances came up, I reopened my shop on a whim. Right after I reopened it, I visited my shop to make sure everything was up and working. Immediately when I opened the page, I felt this surge of warmth. It was like returning to a warm sunny room I used to love and spend a lot of time in. I felt a simple joy I haven’t felt about many things recently. In a flash I remembered how it felt to make all of the pieces of artwork—like laughing, like playing, and often like being a lightening rod for something bigger than myself. It sounds so cliche, but when I’ve made most of my word drawings, it has felt like the words came flying in from somewhere else {maybe on the wind} and they opened me up.

Then shortly after I reopened my shop, I got an order for a print. Today when I was walking to the post office to put it in the mail, I laughed out loud when I thought more about the specific print that had been ordered. This first print I sold after reopening my shop was the print above: “Get Back on the Horse.”

I wondered, “Is this just a coincidence that out of the 100 items in my shop, this is the first thing I sell after reopening my shop?” Perhaps it is just a coincidence, but it warmed me again and I felt happy.

I still don’t know where I’m headed, or what even next week holds for me. Part of me thinks that this whole experience is happening to teach me a big lesson in accepting the unknown and how to stop trying to control everything. I can feel that I still have a ways to go here, that I’m meant to sit in the unknown for a while longer. And also, after such a big rift in my life, I know that nothing will ever be the same {not my art, not my work-life, not my heart or mind or way of being}. And this is a good thing—even though it’s scary. This is what it takes to expand.

What I have learned most from this most recent part of the lesson is this: feel the warmth. There are certain parts of everyone’s life that open up with simple warmth. Those moments when we feel a surge of simple joy. Art has always opened up that feeling for me, that’s why I’ve kept drawing and making even through the past three months, if only just by spending a few minutes drawing each day.

I think if you want to live your life guided by more than just your logical brain, the best thing to do is feel the warmth, bask in it, and follow it where it will take you. Sometimes it might be hard to make out where it might lead, but you can’t go wrong if you’re feeling the warmth.

Here’s to all of us having the presence and courage to feel the warmth and follow it into the unknown. I wish you so well!