Are you playing it safe?

Sometimes life jumps out and grabs you when you least expect it.

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” – Erich Fromm

Just last week I was signing the papers on our new home and getting ready for the big move. Today, I find myself sautéing up fillets of fresh caught tuna in the Dominican Republic. My father’s run into some health problems while on vacation here and needs some help getting home. It’s not what I had planned for the summer, but it’s definitely what’s happening this summer.

We can build our lives around stability and try and play it safe but our life is dealing the cards and the house always has the advantage. Good art knows that. Great art demonstrates it. When I look at a painting that I love, my favorite parts are usually the parts that I don’t quite understand. That’s where the guts are. That’s where the artist got out of their own way in order to let the painting speak for itself.

Calolima the little creek – Las Terrenas – Dominican Republic

There’s no one specific kind of art that feels predictable, but I can tell when an artist is afraid to risk and refuses to let go. I get it. Life can be unpredictable enough. Still, the letting go is always worth it. It makes room for the unexpected, the brilliant, the magic.

A realistic painting can go well beyond the outlines with such neurotic sensitivity, and depth that we can feel the artists obsession with their craft in every detail. An abstract painting can peel open a part of our psyche. It can address the subconscious that we don’t have words for. In art, any and all of this is possible, but it only works when we are willing to put what we think we know aside, and allow ourselves to be vulnerable. To be alive.

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And so, I find myself up at 4:30 in the morning pulling my supplies together, jumping on a scooter, and twisting over the hills towards the ocean. The easel’s in place and my paints are laid out for the sunrise and I get to watch as the locals clean the beach and the birds disappear into the morning sky. My painting’s finished and placed in its protective box just before the clouds split open and I’m back in time for breakfast drenched from the ride home. I feel reborn and ready for another uncertain day.

How do you stay creative during the hurricane season of life?

Are you playing it safe?