When I bring something I’ve thought about in my head to life, and it happens with ease, I feel as if I have super human powers. It doesn’t matter whether I’m searching my brain’s thesaurus for the perfect few words to convey a feeling, or trying to capture with my camera how dawn transforms shadowy black tree trunks into golden beams of light, or attempting to prepare a satisfying evening dinner without a recipe.

When I create – whether it’s good or bad, whether it’s through words or with images – and the work begins to flow, the experience becomes something beyond feeling superhuman. It’s a rare and fleeting moment of connection to The Source. I don’t believe for a moment that I’m special. This euphoric flow is available to all of us. We just need to get out of our own way. 

I knew that our move to a Virginia townhome three times the size of the 600-square-foot apartment we left behind in California would afford me the space to create. Specifically, I would have the space to create visual art. This was not a random whim. I was an art and education major in college. In my thirties I was the quintessential starving, struggling artist. By the time I reached my fifties I thought I’d left all that ‘art nonsense’ behind. But then, as I entered my sixties, we had a global pandemic. The pandemic was a tragic blessing. The shutdown and all the ramifications of being essentially under house arrest by an invisible and deadly invader afforded those of us who remained healthy the time to remember who we were.

I took advantage of the opportunity and remembered that I was an artist. I didn’t do this on my own. I was encouraged by a friend who was beginning her own art journey and of course by Ben, who would support me no matter what path I chose to follow. Our small home limited my options but I could feel my creative impulses coming back to life.

When we settled into our new home in Virginia I set up a space and began my creative practice in earnest. Within a year I had found some success. My work was being exhibited and I was awarded first place in a competition I believed I had no chance of winning. I secured a year-long residency at McGuffey Art Center that culminated in a group show with five other artists and where I am currently renting a studio. This October I will have my first solo exhibit in forty years at a lovely gallery just steps off the Pedestrian Mall in Charlottesville.

It was after we organized the group show in late May, as I was beginning to consider the new body of work I needed for my solo exhibit, that the artist’s block landed on my psyche like a ton of bricks. An artist’s mental block is not too far removed from the ‘twisties’ gymnast Simone Biles experienced at the Tokyo Olympics – minus, of course, the potential for career ending injury or death.

I was lost in my head. Obsessed and over-thinking. Every empty and soulless hour in my once vibrant studio chipped away at my flagging confidence. And as my confidence wavered so did my motivation. The block I was experiencing fueled every limiting self-belief I’ve carried with me since childhood. I knew I was a fraud. I knew the success I achieved  was nothing more than a simple fluke. It was time to let the gallery in Charlottesville know that I would not have work ready for my solo exhibit. I was done.

What felt like a bitter eternity in reality was six precious weeks. But finally, in early July, the block began to shift. It was a heavy burden that I fought like hell to get through. But more and more, momentary flashes of insight would arc through my mind like the faint shooting stars we search for in the wee hours on a warm summer night. 

I was encouraged but hadn’t quite found my footing. And then, two weeks ago, this happened:

It’s the middle of a very hot July. There’s an exhibit of women fiber artists at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC that I am desperate to see. Ben and I decide to have a mini-break and head north. On a warm Saturday morning we walk to the gallery from our hotel and discover a small but comprehensive show of work in a gorgeous space. As we move through the exhibit we stop at a piece by artist Lenore Tawney. From a canvas frame suspended several feet above our heads and parallel to the ceiling, Tawney has dropped several hundred – maybe several thousand – thin linen cords. The work is part of her Cloud series. The effect mesmerizes me to the point that tears fill my eyes. It is stunning. An ethereal cube of light comprised of suspended strings floats over the gallery floor. It is spectral and yet, at the same time, it feels solid. 

I hear Ben ask what I’m thinking.

I’m thinking that visual artists are trying to tell a story in a language that cannot be translated for others. A language where fluency is evasive. But the more they work, the more they explore, the more visual vocabulary they gain. This is the difficult path we traverse as we move closer to finding our own voice. Our own visual language.  It is a challenging and sometimes frightening journey because it requires us to look starkly and deeply within. But as we work, as we explore, we begin to scrape away the muck of over-thinking until all that is left is feeling. From there, everything is simple. From there, one thousand linen threads suspended from a ceiling can move a person to tears. 

I don’t know if artists ever find their one true creative voice. Perhaps striving to work from a base of feeling rather than intellect is the best we can do. We learn techniques in the same way a creative chef practices with their set of knives (or a yoga teacher practices asana). And mastering our technique with a brush or a potter’s wheel or a loom is, of course, important. But finding that simple, pure, critical and instinctual base of feeling? To borrow a bit from the Little Prince – that feeling comes from the energetic heart and is invisible to the eye.