“Creative Alchemy and Mindful Art Practices” 2019 – A series of articles by Roseline de Thelin, Multi Media Artist, Creativity Coach & Mentor, Expressive Arts Teacher & Art Therapist.
Weaving the intentional and the accidental in my art making is a never ending source of inspiration. I experience a state of exhilaration when I am patient enough to let a dialogue unfold between generating beauty through accidents/chaos/irrational moves and intentionally accompanying the shaping of novel structures or harmonic patterns within the chaos. When this dialogue leads the art making “the third” emerges and the work starts shaping in renewed unexpected and uplifting ways.
“Presencing and Essencing” (Heidegger) a fresh new work that is birthing through my hands is like tasting for a moment the effortlessness of the Zen master, the pure connection to the creative flow. This is a kind of bliss that cant be controlled or captured, it unconditionally asks for humble and complete presence free of the projections and judgments of the ego. Timelessness meets timeliness, as the artist/creator witnesses the past shaping into a new now, the future in making.
Leonardo da Vinci advised the budding artist to stare at the stains on walls: ‘If you look upon an old wall covered with dirt, or the odd appearance of some streaked stones, you may discover several things like landscapes, battles, clouds, uncommon attitudes, humorous faces, draperies, etc. Out of this confused mass of objects, the mind will be furnished with an abundance of designs and subjects perfectly new.’
Leonardo’s technique, which encouraged the viewer to search for meaningful shapes in chaos, referred back to myths about the origin of art in accidental shapes. This is what I call the awakening of the artist way of seeing, hunting beauty every where and mostly where it is unexpected.
I seam to be always attracted by the edges of the paper, the sides of the canvas or what accidently happened around the work. I see such beauty surfacing at times on the edges of the work.
