Trust

There will be a number of people reading this blog  and that familiar  instinct will start to niggle. Everybody  wants something from you or the content must be false or has been written with a need to feed their own ego . Fair enough . You might need to feel that way just now. The reason for that is a complicated thing , but it generally means you might just really find it hard to trust someone being kind or giving you something without wanting anything in return . 

I have been in situations of Late where despite slogging my guts out , I have faced doubters and others inability to trust , therefore displaying unhappiness , jealousy or other less pleasant manners ! in the form of a variety of different guises. It happened once and I tried even harder, it happened twice and I smiled and walked away wishing the person well.

I used to try so so hard to make people happy . I thought I could and that it was my job to . That because I had all this love , and all these ideas on how to make things better that’s what I needed to do , regardless of me . It’s still ok to want to do that, its just so much better if you aren’t exhausting yourself filling the gaps in someone else’s learning to satisfy your desire to perfect everything. And you can let them see the problem, but not fix every tiny detail for them. 

In the context of both the classroom and life though , the truth is , that the harder you care for others , without knowing that you deserve it too , all you do is create a reliance on others towards you for ever , without them learning the skills to develop as independent creative and unique people. 

To create well, you need to really love what you are madly collecting pictures of, thinking about drawing, imagining the marks you’ll make, or embracing the layers of texture you have found is your secret code for your work, or your fabric piece or your , or the brush-marks in your painting. No amount of teaching can find your unique way of making your artwork , but listening to every scrap of advice without ego and not judging yourself or anyone else is a good way to start.

I guess it’s as simple as still bringing the paint and ideas and passion to the table , and being your inspirational wonderful self but not needing to know the outcome of each persons artwork , leaving the journey as important as the destination . Teaching the very young or elderly slows everything down to a snail’s pace , becoming about each brushstroke and the conversation at the time . Very rarely is the end result. Their trust in that minute , in you is a gift and a privilege. 

It can be an amazing thing to notice when we are given moments like this, when we find people who trust us, when time slows down to no -time and everybody is in the zone.

If you know you are being genuine , your work will be too. If you send out the message that you don’t trust people or gifts given in all shapes and sizes to you.. then that mistrust surrounds you like a cloak; and you forget to peep out from under it , once in a while. Not everyone is like the person that made you feel that way..

Enjoy at least some of the ride , come and stick your hands in some paint… some of life’s passengers are quite wonderful! ! Xx