Purpose & Imperfection.

The delicate swirl of color you see here is wasted paint; excess that fell from my squeegee and splashed onto the floor. Yet, (and I hate to admit this!) these rogue, rainbow splotches are often more beautiful and interesting than the actual painting!

What do you love about yourself? What do you fear? We all seem to have at least one fatal flaw that sneaks up and sabotages us once in a while. There are certain things about myself that I’ve been trying to change for years. Parts of my personality that I don’t necessarily hate…but that quickly go from fun to dysfunctional when left unsupervised. While I was painting the other day, the splash of paint you see in this picture landed on the floor and sent me down a little metaphoric rabbit hole about the double-edged sword the imperfect parts of our personalities present.

For years, I’ve wondered how to capture both of these “mistakes” the right way. How can I harness their true essence and leave behind the harmful parts? What can I do that would allow them to become the artwork itself?  How do I make them purposeful? Our flaws, the things we hate or fear about ourselves, aren’t much different than these seemingly useless blobs of paint. They are twisted little manifestations of ourselves, leaping out of line and causing chaos in an otherwise well-intentioned scenario. These parts of our personality can show us pieces of ourselves that are deeply wounded, yet exquisitely beautiful and a powerful part of our uniqueness.

I don’t really believe that I can “fix” my flaws, just like I can’t control gravity enough to stop the paint from falling to the floor, splashing my walls and staining the room with unintentional art. What I can do is transform them. I can use them. When we show compassion to ourselves and honestly examine our actions, rather than just feeling guilty, disappointed or living in fear, we open up a new way to connect to our highest potential and better yet, connect to each other.

I think I can safely assume that 2020 has pushed many of you to new levels of introspection, just like me. We are existing together in a time of deep transformation. I truly believe that the changes we experience inside ourselves we will see reflected in the world.  We create our reality. So, I’ll keep working on making these pretty little paint spills more and more purposeful. And I’ll keep figuring out how to stop fighting my flaws, and somehow let them help me, and hopefully others. I feel like I’m pretty close.