They say that you should pursue art that "speaks" to you. To really get your money's worth, you have to have some sort of connection to it. Otherwise, you might as well just buy something at Bed, Bath and Beyond to sling on your walls.
Today, during my weekly pre-class coffee stop, there was a featured artist on the walls of my favorite caffeinated watering hole. I believe it's the artist’s first exhibit, and one of her paintings spoke to me immediately. It’s not that I gushed over it as much as it just called out to me and said, simply, “look at me…NOW.” The painting is called, Leaving it all Behind. The artist's name is Madame Aradia. She has an interesting style; it’s kind of Tim Burton’esque, but it has that same willowy type figure that I seem to be drawn to (see my links at Bella Pilar). She’s not a girlie girl, I would guess, but more of an “I dye my hair black and listen to Evanescence” type chick. Either way, I like her stuff. It’s cool.
While I'd like to say that I'm a 100% practical, Virgoan, mainstream chick, I'm a big believer in signs, destiny, fate, and all that crap. I can't help it. It's just a part of who I am. A straight-laced Banana Republic tweed skirt wearing closet hippie. Without the patchouli smell, of course.
I think that signs show up in everyone's daily life - sometimes they're smacks upside the head - but most of us inadvertently ignore them. We hear things, see things, smell things, and feel more than we allow our brains to actually acknowledge on a daily basis, I'm convinced. I know that about 99.5% of the psychics I've visited (after a few glasses of vodka while out with the girls) were completely full of shit, but I do believe that we all have some sort of spirit guides that try to tell us things along our way. I guess some would perceive this as intuition. Others view it as common sense. The "you really shouldn't be doing this" voice in your head when you're jumping head first into something you know is going to be truly bad for you, but you throw caution to the wind anyway. That common sense intuition – and the tiny deviations in our path each day – have to be something other-worldly, giving us a bit of guidance in this crap shoot we call living.
Yesterday, when I saw the painting, I thought, “Huh...must be one of those moments.”
And then, as if the painting wasn't enough for one day, a business card was lying right next to it. And, there was only one. It wasn’t a normal business card, but rather a card with a simple website on it – it was for the National Novel Writing Month website. A seemingly simple idea – write 50,000 words (or 175 pages) in a month. Go ahead, the contest prompts...put out quantity over quality, and see what happens, along with a gazillion other aspriring writers. The prize? Jack squat, unless you think some notoriety among other writers is a prize.
I just started training for a yet unnamed half marathon last week, getting up in the morning and running my obligatory 20-30 minutes to get my body somewhat back in shape. November is one of the busiest months I foresee in a long time. Yet, I’m still wondering...what if. What if I actually can spit out 175 pages of low quality stuff, only to have it morph later on into a work of true art? What if?
The picture – it said, “If you spend your life looking back, then soon you will become but a ghost of the past, living in the future.” The business card? It said, “Write for you, just shut up, do it, and don’t regret.”
Four weeks and 175 pages? With three simultaneous jobs already? I don’t know about that...but the sign was duly noted.
