“My heart feels safe with you.
The dance of my heart, in and out of risk.
Peeking behind my blanket pulled up past my nose.
Seeing what the situation is before I make my presence known.
Sometimes I want to be optional.
I want to watch from a perch,
until I am sure.
When I am sure, my body changes,
my shifts become swift, my coy becomes bold.
And I am out there vulnerable as white skin in the sun.
I am out dancing on the three dots at the end of all my sentences..."
Vulnerability is something everyone deals with. Most of the time it is unspoken, and sort of just exists at the base of one’s personality. Most of the time people don’t even want to talk about it. But everyone has different ways they’ll feel vulnerable, and different reasons too. It is all tied up with what our greatest fears are.
Sometimes we like to spend our days curled up with our greatest fears, our insecurities, our blah blah blahs. The things that make us blah!
This painting is about the shift from coddling this vulnerability, to moving on! It’s like a storyteller that has gone on and on to bore you half to death. I mean, get to the point, man! Life is short! Get over it!
So we flip the switch. We stop paying attention to our imperfections. We stop identifying so heavily with them. We start to value all the things we can do, instead of all the things we can’t. This is when we break out of our ‘blah’ self and become a higher personality. A personality that has something to offer the world, instead of just wallowing in the past and sucking the life out of the air around us.
The idea for this painting came from that moment. That moment in time where we decide to really go for it, and live life to the fullest. It’s the moment that we accept that we have flaws, but we don’t care about that anymore. At that particular moment, this is what it would actually look like. Rays of bright color flashing outward from the details. The yellows and oranges around the edges are those colors, and the detail area in the middle is where this emanates from. That detailed area in the middle represents the single personality. The blue-green on the bottom right is just how it is anchored in time. It is where the light comes from.
The reason I titled it “My Heart Feels Safe with You” is because when this moment is captured, it has everything in it. It has vulnerability, insecurity, self doubt, all the things that hold us back. It also has boldness, creativity, grit, perseverance, and joy....all the things that happen when we persist. That’s why it had to be so colorful. Feeling ‘safe’ is meant to mean secure in the decision to be more open to the world. It is not meant to mean ‘without risk’. The ‘You’ I refer to is risk in itself.
It seems fitting that I am writing this New Year’s Eve 2019. It dawns on me how much of a message to myself this painting is. I tend to watch and wait in life. I mean I have always been a watcher, that’s what feeds my art making. My New Years resolution this year is to be more bold. I am hoping to be able to act upon some of these ideas that live only in sketchbooks lying around the house. If I stack them up, they would be taller than I am. Time’s up!
This year I am hoping to find new and different opportunities to share my art, and ultimately my point of view. My real goal is to shave away the distractions and get to the point, man! My real goal is to be authentic, to be bold. Let’s see how that goes.
As I reflect upon the year, I feel so much gratitude towards those who have supported me by buying my art, especially this year! It is the warmest, fuzziest feeling in the world to be supported in pursuing my passion. Every single sale is a little spark that keeps my fires going. So thank you from the bottom of my heart! Happy New Year!