Michelangelo and Goals
After reading this newsletter, I realized that I owe my great ability to reach goals, to a life of art projects. I look back at the many times that I have been able to take a client’s idea and turn it into a reality ( in a somewhat timely fashion ) and I can see why I am a task master today.
Art is in my blood.
Most of my greatest heroes are artists. My absolute favorite is my aunt, Lena Bartula. She says that life is inspiration,
” inspire and be inspired “.
Michelangelo di Buonarotti was a man who understood the long game; his statue of Moses required 6 contracts and over 40 years to complete- that is commitment. We can certainly learn much from him in the way of reaching goals.
What I have always been inspired by, the system that was prominent at the time of Michelangelo; a world where artists were commissioned and lived by the grace of their benefactors, thus allowing for absolute creative genius.
The artists of old, as long as they were under commission of some great pope or king, lived well. As long as their benefactors were pleased with their work. I know wealthy people who love to have some great artist or musician around the house, they fund their records, gallery shows and push them towards their crowd.
Careful though, if you decide you want to bring home and artist, we are temperamental and moody.
One of my greatest inspirations has always been Frida Kahlo, for her strength and determination. She painted under the absolute most difficult circumstances. By painting her body organs, she pioneered in a very traditional setting; by painting in her bed with a canvas suspended overhead, she painted as if it were connected to each breath.
I have had visions or paintings or poems that seemed to be so necessary, as if creating them, bringing them to life, is what my life depended on in that moment, as if they were itching their way to the surface of my skin.
My soul.
I love transcendental art.
I am taken away by the painting, ” Reclining Female Nude as Danea, attributed to Bruno Braquehais, 1850. I see a transcendental thought projected through the lens of decadence.
I am moved by the paintings that began to pop up on the scene in the late 1930’s by avante garde, ( mostly ) female artists who were bold and dedicated to the principles of abstraction, abstracting into a next dimension. Agnes Pelton, Georgia O’Keefe and later Ricardo Martinez de Hoyos, to name a few of my favorites.
Pure beauty.
My best paintings came from a spiritual space, deep inside of me, a space of dance, floating in front of my easel, my body feeling music, a rhythm that flows through me specifically for the outcome of paint and canvas. In that moment, only I can see- a space where only I can allow that mixture of energy and ideas to flow through my fingers to bring creation.
It’s my truest spirit self.
Although I have little or no access to paint, I remain an artist.
I keep several sketch books, specifically dealing with art and creativity. I have dozens of art projects sketched and detailed- ready, for the moment when I am able to set up shop in a studio, in the California desert.
I see a place where creative, recently released from custody, artists can come and form a colony, a tribe. The common goal of our tribe- focusing on CREATIVE SOLUTIONS to the various challenges of our times. Healing the world around us with art and love, bringing awareness to mass incarceration, family separation, with emphasis on healing, compassion, DANCING LIGHTLY ACROSS THIS EARTH.
In one of my little composition books filled with creative solutions and ideas, there are artists and other folks who inspire me; Elizabeth Grouste, Roberto Lugo, Man Ray, Coco Chanel, Christopher Myers, and the architect, Louis Kahn.
My creative solutions span across canvas, into the fire of a kiln, home decor, clothing and architectural design.
I have extensive designs for clothing and other things which I will make using old clothes found in thrift stores. We have a problem, on this earth, of discarded textiles. I have friends who, literally still believe that it’s goush or taboo to wear the same clothes from season to season. I plan to use these discarded clothes in many ways, all detailed in my nifty little book.
Another of my favorite heroes is my Auntie Em. She takes the clothes from thrift stores and creates bags and reusable feminine hygiene “rags” to take to the disenfranchised girls of Africa; girls who would not be able to attend school if it weren’t for the creative solutions of my aunt and her friends.
Here, the women use these disposable, government issued luxuries, as if their is a never- ending supply- which there is, never -ending as far as the amount of time a pad stays in our earth.
There are paintings which I hope to own one day like, ” Man Sitting” by Johannes Kahrs, 2008 oil on canvas. The painting depicts a dude bruised and beaten, bandaged as if he has just lost a fight. I have stared at the photo of this painting many times, imagining it were me; saying to myself, “so you are beaten, what now?- bounce back!”
In my book, I also have a common template with each sketch, design or inspiration; the how, and what I will need, an idea of the profit. These are books filled with an artist’s step-by-step plans, part of my big re-entry extraordinaire!
Each time I open one of these books and add creative ideas and plans, I can look myself in the mirror and honestly say, ” yes, my actions today are in line with my goals for tomorrow”.
I have always set high standards and goals for myself. The key is to begin all things like we begin when attempting to achieve a difficult yoga pose, one that looks impossible, we must simply breath, little by little, until one day when we find we are simply, ” doing it “.
Another of my heroes, Anais Nin, said, ” The body is an instrument which only gives off music when it is used as a body “
I believe it also paints.
READ NEWSLETTER ARTICLE HERE: https://prisonprofessors.com/journal-entries/michael-angelo-and-goals/