2013: The year of lightness

Lake Windermere II, © Sarah Marie Lacy

Lake Windermere II, 16″x20″ acrylic on canvas, $600 © Sarah Marie Lacy

Every year, I pick a word or theme for the coming months. I’m not into goals and resolutions because those are generally forgotten before the first week of February.

But I love the idea of a theme for the year, something to put in the back of your mind and mull over gently for the next 12 months. For myself, I always pick a quality that I want more of in my life – more harmony, less discord; more laughter, less pessimism. It could be anything. I pick whatever feels right.

I’ve been working through Susannah Conway’s Unravelling 2013 workbook, reviewing 2012 and looking forward to 2013. This past year was a doozy – there was a lot of hard and a lot of wonderful. It was a year of adventure, and it wouldn’t be an adventure unless there were good times and bad times. (Would Indiana Jones have been as awesome if he didn’t have to run away from giant rolling stones??)

As some of you know, I sold all of my furniture, put the rest of my belongings in storage, packed up a suitcase and went off to art school in France to study the art I’ve always wanted to make. It’s been both more amazing and more difficult than I foresaw.

It’s also been a year of being blindsided by personal grief and events that echoed through my life, rippling out like waves in a pool. I’m still trying to put bits of me back together.

2012, more than anything, was a year of lessons – that I’m stronger than I think, that I’m more scared than I thought, and that I’m deeply, deeply stubborn when I really want something.

I also learned that planning is really useful and helps me keep moving forward, but sometimes the Universe sees all your pretty plans and then laughs gleefully as it smacks them all away with a careless swipe of the hand.

Also, that love, kindness, patience and compassion will fix pretty much everything. And that if you just pour as much love as you have into a situation, it will heal. That healing may not always look the way you imagined, but there will be peace & ease there.

Looking to the year ahead

My word for 2013 came to me weeks ago - Lightness.

2012 was a heavy year in many ways and more often than I’d like, I forgot to relax and enjoy myself.

This year, I want some more lightness. Lightness of spirit, of body, of mind, of art.

Lightness of feet as I dance around my kitchen.

Lightness of voice as I sing enthusiastically and off key in the shower.

Lightness of mind as I remember to laugh, both at myself and at the vagaries of life.

Lightness of spirit and heart as I learn to release old wounds and hurts.

Light infusing the art that I make.

If you forget to relish the good times, it’s that much harder to get through the bad times. I’ve been learning this lesson for the last 12 years. What can I say? I’m a slow learner.

Even when I was most sick – so sick that friends couldn’t come to visit and days passed in a haze of daytime television and ceiling-staring, I held onto the little things. I’d paint my nails bright blue, and then every time I saw my hands, I smiled inside.

Now, here I am doing things I couldn’t have even imagined 7 years ago and I keep forgetting to relish the wonder of it all. In my heart, I’m so happy I could burst. But then in my day to day life, relaxing and enjoying it all slips away in a tidal wave of to do’s, to don’ts and anxieties.

And as I work through my personal grief, it’s more important than ever that I remember to welcome joy into my daily life. It’s not about blind positivism, but of balance – yes, there is pain. But there is also pleasure and sunshine and rain pattering on roofs, and freshly baked cookies and steaming cups of tea and brightly-coloured fingernails.

So here’s to a year of laughter and playfulness, to delicious food and goofy dancing, to ridiculous jokes and silliness, and remembering to not take life too seriously.

Here’s to lightness, in all the ways it shows up.

If you’d like to help me get back to France this year & read more about my journey, click right here to find out more

What 1096 hours can do.

Proof that every penny I’ve spent has been worth it.
(Studying at Studio Escalier, 2011 – 2012)

1096hours-later

Find out how to get some art of your own and how that helps me stay in school by clicking right here.

Sometimes the hard part is where all of the best things are.

An Ancient Roman Bridge (France), 10?x12? oil on canvas, unframed$275 CDN + $25 shipping

An Ancient Roman Bridge (France), 10?x12? oil on canvas, unframed
$275 CDN + $25 shipping – click here for more info

I’m applying for my first Canada Council arts grant today. It’s been anything but fun. (Turns out, I would rather have my nails pulled out than write grant essays. I am assuming this feeling lessens with practice.)

It’s an equity/disability travel grant and I’m hoping it will offset some of the costs of the Paris program coming up in January. (There are a lot of zeros.)

Writing art grants are a big part of an artist’s life and it’s time that I started practicing. So whether I’m awarded any money or not, it was a useful exercise – I updated my resume, filled out their budget and most importantly, had to write an essay that would persuade a group of strangers who have never seen my work that I am a worthy of investing $1000 in.

It took me a week to write the 3 page essay. There was a lot of stomping around the house in between writing sessions, as I overflowed with frustration and fear.

Am I doing it right? Will they like it? What if they read it and laugh at me? 

In the end, I just sat down and did it. No magic, just fingers to keyboard, words to screen. And after a while, I began to remember my passion for what I’m doing and forgot about the anonymous people reading it. I allowed myself to get caught up in the pleasure of writing something well.

I’m proud of what I wrote. It expresses clearly and passionately why I’m going to Paris and the Louvre, why I care, and how it’s going to affect my work. Even if nothing comes of it, I wrote something meaningful.

And the hardest part of all was naturally where all of the juicyness was hiding. I had to explain how the work I made was a part of “disability arts” – arts that express the views and opinions of disabled people. I was worried because my work does not immediately strike anyone as something that could be described as disability arts. It’s not political and I don’t make social commentary.

This is what I wrote:

At the age of twelve, I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and fibromyalgia. Art became my way of coping with my changing world and the physical discomfort of chronic illness.

The work that I make is a search for the opposite of my own experiences. In a world that can be harsh, I seek out the beautiful. In a life where my body has not always functioned the way I wished it to, I paint the intricacies of the human body to remind myself how elegant and exquisite it can be.

To be disabled is to sometimes forget your own humanity, to reduce your sense of self to only what you cannot do. And yet to make art is so distinctly human. I am interested in that humanity and the truth that resides inside it. My work is representational and realistic because I want to see the world clearly and without distortion; it is about truthful perception.

To be human is to make peace with our own fragile vulnerability and our strength, and for me, nothing epitomizes that more than the flesh, blood and bone of our own bodies. The Old Masters captured that sense in pieces that can still take our breath away, even hundreds of years later. I want to study and incorporate that understanding and that feeling into my own work.

It is nothing but honest truth.

And in writing and re-reading those words, they feel important. They feel soul deep. Sometimes it’s easy to forget why I started making art in the first place, the reasons and passions that drive me. I have seen darkness, I have been through trauma and suffering. My life has not been served to me on a silver platter.

But I believe in the lightness of life. I believe in the good, in the beautiful, in the kind. And I make art to remind myself and others of the beauty that is around us every single day. 

I am not as sick as I used to be. I am lucky. Over the past 12 years, I have learned to manage my symptoms and it’s not something that even crosses my mind on a daily basis. Like a diabetic learns to monitor their insulin, I’ve learned to listen to what my body needs.

And now, I’m fortunate enough to be going on this crazy adventure, spending half the year in France, and studying the art that I love. I’ve been there the last 2 years and it still boggles my mind that this is my life.

It’s not easy by any stretch, and at the beginning of each new year, I have my freak out moment as I crunch the numbers for the year ahead and it always seems impossible. But somehow, between fundraising and loans, I get there. And I’m still going!

If you’re interested in finding out about my crazy French art adventure, click right here to read all about it. If you’re interested in helping me fund my dream, you can always sign up for Sketches from the Road!

The latest work from France

After 6 months away at school in France, painting and drawing my little heart out, these are the latest pieces. (My favourite is the very last one!)

It’s been a year of breakthroughs and light bulbs going on. After 14 months of pushing and studying and practicing, the pins began to drop into place and suddenly everything got easier. I’d pushed through to the other side of conscious incompetence and it’s much more spacious over here. There are whole new vistas to see, and worlds to explore and understand.

I am impossibly excited.

Four weeks today, I leave Canada for Paris to take my dreamiest dream course ever – 9 weeks drawing at the Louvre every day. You’ll be hearing a lot more about that soon!

For now, I leave you with the paintings and drawings I created this year. Most are only partially finished, as I ran out of time in the pose and the point is to learn and study, not finish things. But I’m still happy with the the final results:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How the search for perfect leads to bad art

Work from class here in France

(Hello from France! I’ve missed you all so much. Kisses!)

I’ve been thinking a lot about perfection and art lately.

As I work in class and push to improve and see clearer, I’m beginning to realize that perfect is in the wrong direction of where I truly want to go.

I find that in class, I’m often just trying to “get it right.” Get the drawing right, get the colour right, get the forms right.

But for me, right = perfect. And because I’m so worried about getting it “perfect” that I often sail right past good and beautiful.

Beauty and good art are found beyond the realms of the perfect.

My teacher mentioned in a passing comment the other day the idea that something that is “perfect” pushes it in the direction of something “perfectable.”

Which also means that it’s reproducible.

Great art should never be able to be reproduced according to a set of prescribed rules. Using concepts and theories to understand something – yes.

But the perfect and the beautiful aren’t the same thing. Beauty doesn’t follow a prescribed set of rules. If that were true, we could just mash up all of the best parts of all of the most beautiful celebrities and logic would dictate that we would have the most beautiful person.

We’ve all seen the photoshopped version of that. It’s a frightening Frankenstein’s monster version of beauty.

My search for perfect actually holds me back from making better art.

Perfect and beautiful are on parallel paths to each other. As long as I’m seeking one, I can’t even see the other.

People talk a lot about how perfectionism isn’t useful and stops you from doing whatever it is you want to do because no one is perfect and it’s unachievable.

But what if perfect was an undesirable goal to begin with? What if – even if perfect was something you could attain – what if perfect is actually a bad thing to reach?

If something is perfect, and therefore perfectable, then that means anyone with enough time & dedication can do it. It removes creativity and unique personal insight entirely from the mix.

Sure, if you’re building vacuum cleaners or warheads, then you want a reproducible process that people can get “perfect.”

But if you’re making anything even remotely creative, I’m proposing that you should remove perfect from your vocabulary entirely. Or at least give it a new personal definition.

Find a new goal in your work. I’m searching for beauty, grace, finesse. Maybe you’re going for “delightfully wacky.” Or quirky. Or any number of things that isn’t “perfect.”

Perfect isn’t worth your time. You have gifts, insight, magic. Perfect will strip all those things away and leave you with…

Boring.

I’ve been a perfectionist my entire life. Even though people warned me against it, they stupidly told me that the reason I shouldn’t aim for it is because I’ll never reach it.

You know what my response to that was?

Fuck you. Just watch me. (Me, stubborn? Never.)

No one ever pointed out to me that perfect was an unworthy goal. That it didn’t matter if I could reach it, because nothing I was truly searching for was hiding out in perfect.

There’s no beauty, magic and mystery in perfect. Only Stepford Wives.

So I’m going to put down the mantle of perfection and start a new journey instead. It won’t be easy. The story of perfect is so alluring, so tempting: If you could just get it perfect, then everyone will love you and success and happiness will just show up at your doorstep.

Sigh.

I wish.

Instead, I’ll search for the graceful line, the beautiful movement, the delicious, sparkling colour, the aliveness within the painting – the intangible truths that eventually lead to great art.

What will you replace perfect with?

 

 

How music gave me hope again

The last few weeks have been exhausting. I’ve been working almost round the clock trying to fundraise my tuition money for France while also visiting family and trying to spend quality time with them while I’m still in Canada.

I’ve been feeling tired and not a little discouraged.

My tuition is due tomorrow and I’m still short $3,500. I’ll be borrowing the final sum. Dreaming this big is…hard. It can be painful to dare for something that feels so huge, to expand and expand and expand.

And while it’s exactly what I want, I’ve been fighting old patterns and old ways of thinking to do it. It’s been the icky, hard part of transformation.

So by yesterday, I was at the end of my rope and almost everything was making me teary.

Enter: Frank

When I came home from France last year, Jesse introduced me to a musician called Frank Turner, and it was love-at-first-hearing.

I have spent the last 6 months listening non-stop to Frank. I needed the life-affirming, stick-it-to-the-man, find-hope-love-and-joy essence of his music. I needed that reminder daily, as I worked to get myself back to France this year.

There have been some really hard times the past few months, and Frank’s music helped me through it.

So back in March, when we saw that he was playing in Toronto, we instantly bought tickets.

Last night was the concert.

It almost didn’t happen

I was running late all day. Then we missed our first train up to Toronto. I was so worried that we wouldn’t make it in time, and I was already a ball of raw nerves. Everything just felt too hard. I wanted to sleep for 3 weeks.

Somehow, we made it to Toronto in time, and I even had time to buy a t-shirt. But I was still feeling overwrought.

Then Frank got on stage.

Within 15 seconds of those opening chords, I was weepy. And then when he hit these lyrics:

I am sick and tired of people who are living on the B-list. They’re waiting to be famous and they’re wondering why they do this. And I know I’m not the one who is habitually optimistic, but I’m the one who’s got the microphone here so just remember this:

Life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings, about fire in our bellies and furtive little feelings, and the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a-flickering, and help us with remembering that the only thing that’s left to do is live. After all the loving and the losing, the heroes and the pioneers, the only thing that’s left to do is get another round in at the bar.

I pretty much just lost my shit and cried and clapped and hollered for the rest of the show.

I felt my heart filling up and was reminded of all of the reasons that I do this:

because I believe in something bigger than me, because I believe in you, dear friend, and I believe that life can be wonderful despite the pain and that I want to inspire people and bring people hope and happiness and comfort.

Kind of like what Frank was doing with his music.

This song is my theme song

There is one song in particular that pretty much sums up me and my life.

Shockingly, I cried while he sang this one too.

 

So, dear Mr. Turner, thank you for reminding this artist why she does what she does, on a day when she really, really needed it.

Me, after the Frank concert

Making peace with “failure”

Trees & River at Sunset (France) 11"x14" oil on canvas, unframed, $395. © Sarah Marie Lacy 2012

Trees & River at Sunset (France) 11"x14" oil on canvas, unframed, $395. © Sarah Marie Lacy 2012

“In life, as in baseball, getting on base can be just as important as hitting a home run.”

As my Sunday deadline looms closer & closer, my anxiety levels keep climbing.

I am still $3,650 short of my tuition payment on Sunday. Despite raising over $6,700 in 4 weeks, I’m still not quite there.

Hello, difficult feelings

For some reason, the only yardstick I ever measure myself by is how much money I’ve made.

I painted 17 paintings in 6 weeks, was accepted into an exclusive private studio program in France, had people invent scholarships for me, and because I’m $3,650 short of my $8,500 net profit goal, I feel like a failure.

I am deeply afraid of not making that $3,650.

I have back-up plans in place. I have people I can borrow that money from. I will still stay the full 6 months again this year.

But incurring more debt on top of last year’s debt feels like another failure. I paid for just over half of last year’s studies myself. I still owe my parents about $8,000.

I was so determined to pay for the next 2 years myself, to not burden my parents with more debt in my name. (It’s a private school, so I’m unable to get student loans or lines of credit.)

I can’t help but look back on last year and see only how much I failed, not how much I achieved.

That damn comparison game

There’s a part of my brain that tells me if I was a better person and more successful, I wouldn’t have to raise this extra money. I’d just be rich enough to have it.

If could just unravel my money issues faster, get over my post-abuse fears quicker and shine brighter, and just be a braver, more courageous person, then everything would be fine. I would be a success.

I look at other people, with larger audiences and fatter pocketbooks, and can only see how far away I am from that.

I feel not just broke but broken; less-than in comparison.

And while I’m aware that these thoughts aren’t truth, they still touch on such a raw & vulnerable place that it’s not easy to brush off.

Places that hurt

Since I began to rebuild my life 6 years ago, after 5 years of being incredibly ill, independence has always been something I’ve strived for.

Never again do I want to feel helpless. Never again do I want to feel totally dependent on others for every part of my life, unable to contribute anything useful or meaningful. I felt like a shadow of my true self.

I’m still trying to prove to some part of myself that I’m not there anymore. That I can take care of myself. That I can do it on my own. That I am strong and independent and brave.

Not weak, helpless and afraid, which is how I so often used to feel.

I lost sight of the true goal

The true goal is to study the poetry and craft of the work I want to make in the world. The true goal is to create beautiful, meaningful works of art to share. The true goal is to inspire people, to bring them hope and comfort and joy and compassion.

The true goal is to share my message with the world.

The true goal is not to make money. I just need money to get started.

The true goal isn’t even a goal anyway – it’s a journey. And it’s a journey with a nebulous destination. I will always be working to create art that is more beautiful, and more meaningful than what I’ve made before.

I will always be pouring more of my soul into the work I make.

Finding healing; finding peace

The only thing I can do is give myself love and compassion.

I can only remind myself that asking my parents for financial support to go to my-version-of-university is something thousands of other students have done and that there is nothing weak about it.

I can only keep sharing my dream and my message with the world.

I will keep making the art that lives in my soul.

I will try to remember how far I’ve come – from bedridden with illness to a private French art school on partial scholarship in 6 years.

And that my strength and success go miles deeper than money.

I turn it over to you – do you struggle with anything similar?

Do you easily forget your own achievements? Tell me in the comments about an achievement you just don’t give yourself enough credit for.

If you’d like to help me on my journey, click here to read all about it.

The vulnerability of your dreams

Welsh Fields III (Rhuddlan Castle) 11"x14" oil on canvas, unframed, $395. © Sarah Marie Lacy, 2012

Welsh Fields III (Rhuddlan Castle) 11"x14" oil on canvas, unframed, $395. © Sarah Marie Lacy, 2012

It can feel so vulnerable dreaming big.

To have a vision that feels so huge that some days it can make you feel tiny.

To fiercely believe in the purity, power and beauty of your dream and yet…

Yet to not be so attached to your dream that you shut yourself off from possibility or worse yet…

Let desperation fuel your actions.

To let yourself feel vulnerable, to let yourself radiate with confidence and without the contamination of needy fear.

To let yourself want, to desire and to reach for that desire without grasping and clinging.

To be fully you. To want what you want. Even when it feels crazy, too big, too daring.

This is the fine line you walk, with your heart bared to the world.

 

Brave Enough

Fields at Chateau Villandry, 10"x12" oil on canvas, unframed, $275. © Sarah Marie Lacy, 2012

Fields at Chateau Villandry, 10"x12" oil on canvas, unframed, $275. © Sarah Marie Lacy, 2012

I leave for France a week today. (WHEEEE!))

In 6 days, I have to pay my second tuition payment for the year.

The first program is almost paid for, but now I have to pay for the second program.

I need another $5,400, to cover tuition, rent & food for at least the first few weeks.

If I can’t raise that, I can just about make it to the first program, but I won’t get to go to the second one.

There’s a lot on the line. And I’m terrified.

The parts of me that want to stay small are panicking – they think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, that I was stupid to book the extra painting trips when I can’t even pay for my tuition, that I’m a fool for trying to live my dream life.

That I’m an idiot for ever thinking I can do this. Y’know – believing that I can make a living as an artist and change even a tiny part of the world with my message.

My message of hope and dreams. The message that I believe in you, and I make art that is a symbol of that.

My message that it ain’t over till it’s over, and that you still get to live a glorious, fulfilled life, even if you get knocked down by the hard parts of life.

I believe in you, your dreams, your greatness. I know that you’re wonderful, that you can make a difference, that your soul is magnificent bed of flowers, blooming ever onward.

These things I know. These things I fiercely believe.

And I paint beautiful things for you because you deserve to be surrounded by objects that remind you of this. I paint your soul’s freedom.

I paint the places where your soul shines bright, unfettered by doubts and fears.

So this week, I am asking the powers that be for bravery.

I am asking that they grant me the strength to be the brave, confident, radiant woman I know that I am.

May they grant me the courage I need to shine my light and raise my hand and sell the art I need to sell to get to France.

May they grant me the grace and calm to act with dignity, not desperation; to act from love and not fear.

May they send me the support I need to become the woman I need to be.

Amen.

ME/CFS Awareness Day: 11 things of gratitude for 11 years of illness

Today is International ME/CFS Awareness Day.

I’ve written a lot about my experiences living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. I was diagnosed at 12, and the first 5 years were the toughest of my life.

Back in 2010, I wrote another post for ME/CFS Awareness Day about how art helped me find purpose in my life and gave me a reason to live again.

In a way, my illness and my art are interdependent – without getting sick, I think it would have been a long road to my art. Without my art, I don’t know if I could have moved past being sick to building a better life.

I can’t say that I’m grateful for having a chronic illness – I can only say that without it, my life would have been very different and that I love the life I have right now.

But I like to think that I would have built a happy life, no matter the hand that was dealt me.

So today, instead of talking about how hard it’s been (and lord, some days it’s been hard), I want to celebrate the delights in my life. I want to talk about the good things that have happened the past 11 years.

I have spent time honouring the difficulties. Now I want to honour the achievements.  

11 wonderful things for 11 years of illness

1. Jesse.Jesse

If you know me, you know I’m not the kind of girl whose whole life revolves around her man. But my man is just so lovely, he has to go to the top of this list. For over 5 years, he’s been my best friend, my cheerleader, my shoulder to cry on, and the celebrator of my total dorkiness (since he’s a complete dork himself). We’ve been through a lot together, and come out stronger for it.

I’m grateful to us for us. We built this life together and it’s a pretty damned good one.

2. More amazing friends than I know what to do with.

You know who you are. I am so blessed to know so many delightful people who support me and love me.

3. My independence & freedom.

Six years ago, I didn’t believe that I could ever live on my own or support myself financially. Look at me now! I moved across the country & built a home for myself in a place where I knew no one.

4. Prince Edward Island.

Thank you for being my very first home. Thank you for welcoming me with open arms. Thank you for introducing me to some of the loveliest people I know.

5. My art.

Of course. The art that I make is one of the most positive forces in my life.

The River Cam I, 11"x14" oil on canvas, $395. ©Sarah Marie Lacy, 2012

The River Cam I, 11"x14" oil on canvas ©Sarah Marie Lacy, 2012 SOLD

6. Studio Escalier & France.

My experiences last year were transformational. I still can’t believe that it happened. I still can’t believe that I’m going back in 10 days. I am so grateful and so blessed that this opportunity came into my life.

7. My collectors & supporters (that’s you!).

You are the reason that I make art, that I write and the reason that I got to France. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of the support that you’ve given me the past 4 years.

8. The little things.

Because even on days when I feel sick and small and scared, there are still steaming cups of tea, sunshine, cookies, laughter, books, raindrops and pets who will curl up under the blanket with you. I will never stop treasuring the small, sweet moments of life.

Study: Sugar Cookies, 5"x7" oil on canvas board. © Sarah Marie Lacy, 2012

Study: Sugar Cookies, 5"x7" oil on canvas board. © Sarah Marie Lacy, 2012

9. My family.

They’ve always been a huge source of support for me, even when I start doing things that I couldn’t possibly explain to them. They may not always understand why I do what I do, but they’re always there.

10. I am grateful to my body.

After 5 years of being very, very sick, I began to trust what it told me it needed and since then, we’ve been able to develop a rhythm that works for us and my body has healed itself of so much. I just need to trust it, and it will take care of itself.

11. That still, small voice inside.

I am grateful to myself for listening to that voice. I wouldn’t be where I am today without it. It has been my guiding light back home to myself and out into the world. I don’t know if it’s instinct, intuition, a wiser part of myself or some sort of external force. I just know that when I listen to it, good things happen.

I am still here and I am still dreaming.

I will keep dreaming. I will keep savouring the small things and painting work from my soul. I will go back to France and learn how to make the art that dances in my heart.

I will love and live and laugh, not in spite of being ill, but alongside it.

ME, CFS and Fibromyalgia are devastating illnesses, don’t get me wrong. There needs to be more awareness, more research, more forward movement.

But in the meantime, those of us who deal with this have to learn to live. And that’s what I want to celebrate today – life. The life that flows through us, even when our bodies don’t work as well as they used to.

If you’d like to find out more about ME, CFS & FMS, click here to go to the ME/FM Action Network website.