On Creativity

I was chatting with an artist friend and her boyfriend the other day about life, art, and creativity (as you do!). And it always surprises me to hear that other people struggle to be creative a lot of the time. It's strange to hear because I know I am creative ALL of the time. The only thing stopping me creating artwork all day every day is "life" - the usual things that we do that constitute life and what we do with it.

Her boyfriend is a little musical (as in being musical, not that he IS a musical in itself, that would be weird!! Funny idea though...........He'd keep bursting into song at odd moments of making a cup of tea or going to the bathroom!) and he said that even if he was left to compose music all day for as long as he wanted to, he'd still get fed up of it after a couple of days, as his creativity would have run out by then. This comment interested me, because I think I could paint each day for the next fifty years and not get tired of it. And I'd never run out of subject matter, because even the most mundane subjects can be made to look interesting. I looked around the bar room and realised I could paint loads of things there, even if it's only a coat hanging on a hat stand, the way the light catches a drink in a glass, the gleam of brass, the spirit bottles against the bar mirror, and that's before I even got to surreal or abstract ideas that the room could give me. EVERYTHING can be painted and be made to look interesting. And as an artist I will never feel that I have learnt all there is to know about art, and I know an awful lot already. It's such a vast subject, and we're always learning from it. I could paint the sky every day and do a different painting each time - well I certainly could in this country with its ever changing scudding clouds!

So today I went in search of something creative to add to the Goddess oil painting that I'm currently working on. Some "magic" to add to it. I had the basic idea of what I wanted and went to the appropriate shop to look for .........stars. Heavenly stars. Shining brightly in the universe amongst the Goddesses. Glinting in the depths of the midnight dark velvety sky catching the light and flashing it back. Stars. Mmm....... in a .........crystal shop. But, do you know what? They weren't called "stars" in the shop. Nor were they called "crystals". No. they were called something even more magical................

They were called............................"diamonds"..........

Now, how magical is that? How wonderful! They'll shine like stars and are SO appropriate for the painting. And since they are for a spiritual painting, I've bought eleven. That being the special  number depicting a gateway to magical places................