[Today’s featured artwork for Day 35 of the 365 Days Project is by Marilyn Ines Rodriguez.]
Artists can be highly sensitive and acutely in tune with the world. How do they work with these powerful emotions?
#35 – Artists are gifted with the emotive power of the creative mind – and the strength to deal with it.
As a child, whenever my parents wanted to calm my fears they would take me out of my wildly inventive Artist Mind. “See, there’s really no ghost in that closet!” they would say, throwing me into my logical side to stop me from being afraid of the dark…for that moment.
As an adult I was told I was “too sensitive” but I found that shutting off my creative, emotional side was not the answer. As I started exploring the mind through my work as an artist, I realized that it was necessary for me to be able to experience these emotions without censorship so that I could create from a deep and fearless place. This “sensitivity” is what allows me to be able to “feel” a sculptural form, a particular shade of blue, the mood of a friend, a pending storm. I don’t necessarily create from a particular emotion, but it always has a message and it helps guide me as I move the work forward.
At the same time, I learned that creative thinking is what keeps my emotions in check in a more holistic way than simply shutting them down. I find answers to what makes me anxious or sad as well as happy and peaceful as well as ways to work with those emotions.
I now celebrate this gift of being “too sensitive,” knowing that it is absolutely necessary to do the work I need to do. That’s what it means to be an artist.
“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.”
Pablo Picasso
“Art is knowledge at the service of emotion.”
José Clemente Orozco
“It’s not about facts, it’s about feelings… A definition of art is that it makes concrete our most subtle emotions.”
Agnes Martin
Marilyn Ines Rodriguez’s artwork can be viewed at: Marilyn Ines Rodriguez
The 365 Days Project
In 2012, Serena Kovalosky committed to writing an article a day for 365 days as an exploration into the lives of artists and the value of creative thinking in our society.
Experience the full evolution of the project! Click below to read the entire collection of articles.
Description of the image included in this post:
Mother Earth
Marilyn Ines Rodriguez, California, USA
Bronze
Arabian Sun
Marilyn Ines Rodriguez, California, USA
Bronze
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