sense of peace
Inward
© 1994 Mary Merkel-Hess
All Rights Reserved
listen (36 sec./251KB)
I'm not doing this just for self enjoyment or enlightenment or anything, not anymore. I do it because this is what I do in the world. I want to be useful. I hope it will be something that they can return to, and that it will communicate to them either beauty, some sense of peace. I often work symmetrically, so there's a static quality there that I'm hoping will be a center point for them. I'm also something of a minimalist. So I'm always hoping that people can bring to it something of their own—I'm not really trying to project my personality so much as I'm trying to give them a place where they can project their personality.
spiritual reward
Never Spoken, Never Said
© 1996 Balpreet Kaur
(Barbara Nilausen-K)
All Rights Reserved
listen (44 sec./306KB)
What I enjoy about the creative process is when I really get involved with a piece and I lose all sense of time. It's like I'm in a different place. I think what I have is a gift that not everyone is given that gift, and I have an obligation to use that gift, to explore that gift, to train the gift.
I think that—maybe as crazy as this may sound—the closest to God that I get is when I'm creating. And faith is very important to me. It's a very motivating factor in my life. It's not an easy life. In fact, it's very hard. But the reward's the doing. Because most times, there's not the monetary reward. But it's the spiritual reward, and that's the most important thing.
~ balpreet kaur (formerly barbara nilausen-k)
a spiritual gift
Re-entry (from Moonlight
on the Mississippi series)
© Nancy Purington
All Rights Reserved
listen (39 sec./274KB)
My work really is the marking of my own personal evolution—in the sense of balance that I achieve for my own life. And if I can share that through my paintings with anyone else, then I feel at least I've left behind something that is, in my opinion, valuable. It doesn't add to the chaos or disturbance of the world and I suppose, in that vein, somehow it's a spiritual gift. It's one that I cultivate, and I have tried to find peace for myself in my life through working it out through work.