A Full-on Art Geek

What thrills me better to come across a good book because I am such a nerd is randomly using google search engine and coming across gems of artists who produced breath-taking artworks which inspire the living daylights out of me!

Mara Friedman was one of this rare gem I discovered today and her paintings just spell DIVINE!

I love that the women in her artworks exudes such grace, beauty, sensuality, humanity yet at the same time also portrays strength, spirit and divinity. I absolutely love the way she uses colours. There is a very transcendental element in her drawings, almost other worldly.

Going through her webpage, I read "about the artist" session and that she has been creating paintings that honor the Feminine aspect of Spirit and shares her deep appreciation for the exquisite beauty that surrounds us all with her works.

I love that she doesn't seemed to have any professional training in art yet it was through spiritual awakening, or what Brene Brown would jokingly call "the breakdown" phase. Do listen to Brown's talk here about the power of vulnerability, it's absolutely touching.

Mara's story is that she started painting after quitting her unfulfilling work and finding deep rest and rejuvenation in the island of Hawaii. (Please, can I just take the next plane to this gorgeous paradise I have so often heard of being the place of awakening for many people?)

I love that female artists like Mara reminds me that there is an inner artists that call to us, that we do not need to conform to how societal rules about learning a skill and being good at it. I love that we share something in common like this, it gives me hope and courage. Sometimes I think I had an disadvantage and I can't compete with the "real" artists out there who went to universities and had a degree that confirms their identity as an artist. Already painting seems so obscure a profession, what more being a self-taught one. (My mind can really play tricks in creating all these self-doubting thoughts!)

So so so with the great invention of Internet which I so rely on nowadays, I am sharpening my googling skills and getting all the information from "how to paint with oil pastels and ink" and attending e-courses and letting kindred spirits uplift my soul, I am affirming to myself that I am okay and I am enough being a self-taught artist and exploring mediums through trials and errors!

I tell myself that I have what it takes, I shall keep painting, I shall keep making a mess and get new canvases and experiment and my artwork shall improve constantly, and as an artist and a person I shall too!