The Creative Journey, Hope and Healing
/I try to remember yesterday.
I try to dream tomorrow.
The moment, the now, is ever illusive.
Captured only through the creative will.
This poem is how I think of art, as a form of capture, of telling our story and creating the story of the future. I am so honored to be able to work with children as an artist through Kids & Art. Art has always held a therapeutic value for me in that it helps find that most sacred connection to one's self. We all need to listen to the images in the silence of art.
Unravel, Rewrite, Acrylic on Panel, 32"x32", © Belinda Chlouber 2017
I have always loved storytelling through my paintings. I have my story I tell, but my hope is that the painting will pull the viewer's story out of them, so they create their own feelings and ideas from the painting. It is in this way the painting grows and becomes more than its original intention, in essence it has its own life.
Several years ago I applied to the artist in residency at Recology’s, Artist at the Dump program. I wanted to study healing and the environment. I didn’t get the residency. But instead the universe sent me to the hospital where I stayed with my mother for three months when she became very ill, just at the time when the residency would have been. I learned so much about illness and cherishing the time we are here on Earth. After my mother passed away we found all her poetry, and her father's poetry, and writings that had been stored away for many years. They inspired a whole body of artwork surrounding the idea of ‘Legacy’.
Much of the time our past is made glorious in our minds, our remembering of our lives is culled and recreated so that we can walk into the future, so that we will survive. We are constantly creating our legacy and at the same time creating the future through our present day actions, iIt is as if the thread is unraveling and re-raveling itself at the same time.
Black Flowers turned Pink, Stitching on linen, 14"x18", © Belinda Chlouber 2017
Live Nobly, Mixed Media on Panel, 14"x18", © Belinda Chlouber 2013
Float, 24"x36", Mixed Media on Panel, © Belinda Chlouber 2016
In my own artwork I am focused on the future. How can we tell our story, to form our new story— so that all life can thrive? It is our story that will guide us — our story of who we are, why we are, how we live on the Earth, how we interact with other creatures.
Kids & Art is helping to create a story of self-discovery and healing. That is an epic story, one I am so happy to be a part of!
Code of Hope, Oil on Linen, 60"x48", © Belinda Chlouber 2015
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