importance of mistakes
Reclaimed Drawing
© 1998 Priscilla Steele
All Rights Reserved
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We have such a hope for perfection in ourselves—and we're so hard on ourselves if we're not perfect, that we don't admit the importance of mistakes. And it's been practically through using my mistakes that has made what I regard as my best work, beautiful. You can see the mistakes right in the drawings. And so, don't be so hard on yourself...because all of that experience is important.
passion via painting
Harvest Garden
© 1999 Ellen Wagener
All Rights Reserved
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I can't tell you the number of times I've screamed out loud in the country and in my studio how happy I am and how much I love my life, and how beautiful this location is. It's kind of how I express my spiritual self and how I find the spirit in me.
If at the end of my life I had to watch a quick video of my life, I want to be able to know that while I was spending eight hours in my studio that I was feeling pretty good while I was doing it. And I do most of the time. I think that's what I was really destined to do, and I'm going to do it with as much passion as I possibly can. I want to find passion in my life, and I do via painting. And I'm pretty lucky that I get to do that everyday.
no separation
The Birth of Ten
Thousand Things
© Sheryl Ellinwood
All Rights Reserved
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I think spiritual and religious can be the same thing, but I think most times they're definitely confused in our society. Spiritual to me means in a sense— just in a non-verbal way—experiencing what it means to be human and to be in this time and space, and to understand that there is some thing out there or things out there that are greater than we are. And to understand that I'm as connected to you as I am to that tree or that stone—there's no separation. And when you're working on a piece of art, you go so far into yourself that you're out of yourself—does that make any sense? You're so far in that you're beyond being yourself anymore. And it's only from that point do you start to realize what it may be all about. That to me is spiritualism.