The Life of an Artist

I was recently conversing with a fellow artistic soul on FB. She shared some color practice work in process for a series she was going to paint depicting her beautiful mesa and the surrounding mountains in her area.  After expressing she felt she could "swim" in the colors surrounding her, she stated she was mostly surprised she was being drawn to painting landscapes after many years of doing portrait work.  I responded that it was because she is surrounded with such beauty...and nature's spirit.  Her response "It's my heart beat showing up on canvas" took my breathe away...and got me thinking about what makes art...art.    And why most artists consistently feel that no one actually "gets them"--except other artists.

Maybe that is why people who don't create art and consider themselves "non-artistic" are always iso amazed with art and in awe of those of us who create it.  They don't understand us OR the creative process.  They simple cannot understand how artists are able to paint little pieces of our hearts and souls in everything we create.  And yet, we are basically oblivious that we are even doing that in our art and incapable of actually breaking down our individual creative process to evaluate HOW we do that. We just....do it.

Butterfly image by Gail Green for Impression Obsession Rubber Stamps; background created using Colorburst (Ken Oliver Crafts); butterfly colored in using marker blending with a shimmering top layer of Wink of Stella (Kuretake)

This instinctive, innate ability to tap into our souls and pull out pieces may also be why artists are so instinctively entwined with each other.  We understand each of those heartbeats and understand each other.  Our tribe.  And while it often takes years for people to get to know each other, artists can often accomplish within just a few minutes by simply watching another artist's process and/or seeing what another artist creates.  We intuitively understand what is behind the art and instinctively feel the process at a much different level than the average viewer.  Our sensitivity may be high to begin with but we all have left so many clues in our art.  It's just that most other non-artistic people either don't see the clues, lack the ability to understand what is usually obvious to artists and/or have no idea how to accurately interpret them.

What are your experiences as an artist?  Do you even realize how much you reveal of your own heartbeats in your art?