A safe place

I love and need quiet creative making time. Especially if it is outdoors, but even alone in the studio I find a peaceful process of making paintings one step after the other. When I’m not painting, and alone, I read and look at art. I love being social, too, but I cannot survive without time for myself. I’m fortunate to have it!

“In the US there are 95.7 million singles, some by choice others by default. The main reason is a mission husband” Are we to deduce then… that all single people are women? I think not! Statistically over half this number must surely be MEN… but that’s beside the point. When push comes to shove no amount of creativity can replace love lost for whatever reason… but aloneness does have benefits for our creative self. Aloneness allows us to get on with our heart’s work. It doesn’t replace a soulmate. It can’t. Because one requires us to love another. And the other requires us to love our selves.

I couldn’t agree more that the human organism needs to be involved in productive, creative work to be healthy. As a world society we are gravitating toward more and more spectatorism and less actually doing, much to our detriment, I believe. Why watch what others are doing via the smartphone screen or television or computer screen? We can be out there doing something ourselves! This is especially true when it comes to creating art. It can be a trap to always be looking over another artist’s shoulder, watching how they create, rather than taking the risk of sitting down in front of our own easel and putting a brush to paper. I usually find when I take the risk to create, something good comes of it, even if it is just a lesson to me about how to paint or not paint the next picture. Either way I feel better having made the effort.

Apparently, many many people are now “escaping” into a variety of fantasy worlds and situations via the internet, “fantasy sports”, electronic games and societies, and building alternative personas and possibilities for themselves and each other. Too soon to decide whether this is a productive or potentially damaging new method of “socialization”. But, it occurs to me — We need the sensations and the realities of “touch”, from time to time. Without that form of immediacy, we become something less than our potential seems to promise, and to expect of us.

How true! The letter about “being alone” touched my own heart. After 52 wonderful years of marriage,with my soul mate, I found solice in my watercolours, taking my little palette to my husband’s bedside while he slept. I celebrated our life by travelling with an art group to Italy, instead of sitting at home, lamenting his passing. Whenever I feel life “closing in” negatively, I play beautiful music and divert my mind to my canvas or paper. I know, that is what he would want. Thank you for reminding me. Shirley

I am an artist, a painter at present. I am an artist all my life, and I know this because even though my present artistic outlet is oil painting, the creative impulse and motor skills to execute a creative vision have manifested through several other outlets as I have lived my life. I think about what painting is, and my answer is that it is creating in two dimensions, from what I view or imagine, in three. One would almost have to admit to a digression here, or an overwhelming urge to put our life experiences and creative impulses in a form which allows us to SHARE with others. Otherwise, we could simply experience, and that would be enough. Think about the Buddhist sand mandalas, how beautiful, colorful, and intricate, and temporary. Think about the game of Chess and the intricate nuances of an extended game. Think about the popularity of hitting a small lime-sized ceramic-coated ball with a metal spoon on a stick for the purpose of dropping it into eighteen different holes over the expanse of many manicured acres. OF COURSE we love therapy! OF COURSE we are social animals!

95.7 million “singles”. What about those people in “relationships” who might as well be (or might be better off being) single? Every day, i am grateful for my art – it sustains me, gives me purpose, reinforces, when I do it well, my purpose in life. After 30 years of “marriage”, my spouse and I have little left in common. We have each grown, but not necessarily in the same direction. Do I feel “alone”? No – not at all. Every day, I go to my studio – my safe place – and I work hard to communicate, to challenge myself, to find new things to say and new ways to say them. Am I happy? No more, or no less, than other couples I know. Am I fulfilled? Yes! I have been blessed with tools and skills and insight and fortitude to sustain myself and share insights and meaning with others. Do I have regrets about my relationship? About realizing that, at this point in time., I am as alone as any single person i know? I don’t think so. As with other aspects of my life, I did the best I could, but I am not perfect. Neither as a spouse, parent – or artist. I just feel fortunate that, as one aspect of my life has gaps, those are filled with other gifts.

I have a friend who was suddenly a widow. She is an artist and gardener as I am. A garden and a studio are such great places to think and literally lose ones lost other life. You will come out of that place stronger to face life’s stresses.

We all need a safe place we can go to and just be and create.

I do not live alone but my husband is blind. Some days my journey to explore making my own art – drawing or watercolor or fabric art – feels like being alone because I cannot share it with him. I have to make a safe place for myself and not feel guilty that I’m doing something he cannot see as I develop my skills. It is a different kind of loneliness.

This morning I received your letter on aloneness and the haven of painter’s studio. It seemed amazing that you were directly addressing my problem at this time – being alone and in the studio as a safe haven. I couldn’t believe how apropos this recommendation and your words were, as though you were addressing me personally! Are there that many of us lonely artists out there? I have ordered the book you recommended.

Thank you for all your time and consideration you put into this site. I found it by some mysterious accident and am so grateful. I read your letters in the morning at breakfast and then go to my studio. You supply a “connection” for me to other artist and feelings that feeds my day.

As I understand it, the first thing we learn about God is that He is The Creator [“in the beginning God created…”] . Then, in verse 26 of Genisis 1, He says” let us create Man in our image”….so we were made to create! “Doin’ what come naturally” makes us happy and fulfilled, no matter how well [according to other mortals]we do it. Just playing around with gorgeous colors, especially in those buttery oils, is too delicious. And when you look around outside and try to reproduce the wonders you see with that glorious goo on little flat boards, you are really living…even if you copy God badly. Have at it!

Thank you for this one. Absolutely speaking to me. And not just about art. Your words are relevant most times to all kinds of life experience. I recommended you to a French woman painter who took English lessons from me. It took her a while to sign up but once she did, she was delighted and now your words are helping her maintain her English skills while working on her art and just enjoying your insight as a warm, sensitive human being we both relate to.

Your insights, references and artistry in delivering your message is one of the highlights of this hermetic artist ‘s life. I thrive within the narrowing perimeters of both my outer and inner life. And, with my partner of 23 years I likely could outlive, today’s writing brought trust and comfort in what lies ahead. God bless, I’ve been nourished for year.

Interesting read, as usual. I found the seemingly shocking response from Jean regarding the “missing husbands” quotient rather humorous. Of course, it isn’t half and half – men/women. As there are generally more female than male humans on the planet. The “missing husband” has already found himself “another mate”, thereby leaving an “odd out” female. Regarding the “loneliness” of “exceptional people”, I think it is already accepted that this is indeed a fact. The extraordinary thinkers and doers are generally thought to be rather odd by those thought to be ordinary or “normal”, therefore the normal do not know how to associate with the odd. My greatest mistake in life was in attempting to have an normal life, normal husband, normal house, normal children. Because I didn’t think or do as others, I never seem to fit. I could think and do without guides, instruction material or plans prepared by others, etc. I learned by listening, watching, reading, and simply doing, which meant I figured things out as I went along. I could design my own patterns, plans. My mind soaked up information like the proverbial sponge. I grew up in a strong work ethic hillbilly, migrant field worker family. Work was the only thing valued. However, the ability to innovate and create new things from old things was inherent, so to be able to make “useful” things by one’s own hands was considered valuable, such as making quilts, mattresses, soaps, growing and harvesting food, cooking, canning etc. Drawing was considered play, and there was little time for play. As the youngest of seven, any verbal contributions of mine were considered unimportant, therefore I was silent unless spoken to. So, I grew up lonely and not very sociable. But I cornered myself away from others in whatever space I could find and drew pictures with tablet and pencil. I didn’t have paints until I was grown and married. After three “emotionally absent” husbands and two sons, one of whom is physically and mentally developmentally disabled and still living with me, I have read the research on how family origins dictate how we relate in adult life. It seems people marry into what they recognize as normal. Hence, if family of orgin was emotionally absent, and that is all one knows about love, then that is what one chooses, unless one has somehow learned different. I learned the hard way. But the Creator gave me an out by making me artistic. Whenever I could squeeze some private time, I would find a place, a locked room if necessary, and develop something to create – drawing, painting, sewing, decorating, writing. And it was a wonderful release and wonderfully mine, whether anyone other than myself and God appreciated it. However, people mostly admired my handiwork and stated “she is very clever with her hands” and wanted what I produced. Yet, how ignorant that they didn’t understant that the clever hands are activated by a clever mind. Before the hands can produce, the mind has to picture it and plan it and develop it. Many times I have been asked “how did you do that” or “how do you know that is the truth”? I read, watch, listen, learn. I never get tired of learning. Learning is exciting. Learning is fun. Loneliness can be wonderful, because it allows one to be onself without interruption and questioning. When people ask “how did you do that? and how do you know that”? They don’t really want you to tell them “how”, because they don’t understand when you try to tell them, because their brain doesn’t work the same way as yours and can’t assimilate information the same as yours, can’t put forth same as yours. For many years I wanted someone to “understand” me, so I wouldn’t feel so alone. Finally, after many conversations with God, he taught me to receive my loneliness as a gift. Without that gift I wouldn’t have been able to carry on or accomplish what was needed. When I am alone, I can pray my best, think my best, do my best, feel my best. I am thankful for my eyes and ears and functioning brain that allow me to see the beauty of God’s creation, that others seem to not appreciate, to hear what is going on around me, to process information and make it come out of me in a productive and pleasing way. Alone with God who made us and understands us is better than being in a crowd who does not understand nor appreciate us. My work can be viewed at Fine Art America. I have self-published a 300 page inspirational book of poems and essays. I have a few original copies left. Contact: blanchpaulin@verizon.net

Husbands die sooner than wives statistically because they are more fragile these days. This wasn’t always the case when childbirth was more dicey. Fact is, these days, female artists (many of them alone) outnumber male artists five to one.

This is so useful. Yes, we all need just a place to work away from the traffic, the hustle and the advertising of poor values. Would that all of us in this tortured world could have a safe, private space.

Why do we have to go there? It’s bad enough when your single. You don’t want to have to be reminded of it all the time.

About thirty-five years ago I wrote a couple of articles for the front page of the Lifestyle section of the Los Angeles “Times.” One was about five men living alone and the other about five women. In interviews with my subjects I discovered that, on the whole, the women did much better in coping with and being happy with their solo state; the men talked about feeling lonely and having trouble filling their time. Those articles generated more mail than any others that whole year! There were even solicitations for introductions (which we simply passed on to the parties involved). I have seldom lived alone for long periods, but I know the likelihood is that my husband will predecease me, and I will have to adjust to solitude in my final years. I am looking forward to the recourse of my art! Anchorage, AK

Geez Robert, here I am, thinking I’m in the beginning of a relationship, turning all ‘high school’ about it- (no growth there!!) and coming to the conclusion that I am more into it than he is, and this article appears from you. I have everything in place to paint anything anytime I want and I mentally throw it all away with a little (lot) of attention from a man. Personal growth–I THINK NOT! Not that I’m in any way blaming you, you are merely my universes’ instrument of education. Did you know you’d be someones “Agony Aunt” with this column?

Just writing to let you know that I appreciate your letters. I read them with interest and get inspiration out of them. Thank you for taking the time to create and write them.

Few great things were ever accomplished by a committee. Most great stuff is created by loners.

I always think of you as one of the least alone people I know. You are connected to thousands of people at least two times per week. Can you even imagine a situation of all those connections not existing? I have the alone self and social self – the first one feeling much more natural in my case. But given a horrible choice to never meet another human being ever again or to never be alone ever again, I would choose the later. In childhood I was happy to be completely alone. As I got older I started feeling more pleasure in creating things in connection with others. Creative process is good to save one from aloneness, but aloneness isn’t necessary for the creative process. The safe place is a state of mind – alone or not.

Hi Genn, I thought you might like to know that none of your painting images are showing up on my cptr when I read yr blog – great read btw.