I’ve been going through all my papers and books and everything I own, when I came across some stream-of-consciousness essays I wrote about art-making.
Below is my answer to: What inspires you?
So I’ve been paring down my life and preparing for a little bit more of a nomadic lifestyle. And I came across some essays regarding art making that I’d written stream of consciously and thought, why don’t I make some videos about them?
So the first question that I answered was, “what inspires you?” And here’s my response:
I’m trying to express my physical response to nature. Nature is not clean, and neat. It’s dirty and jagged, and sometimes prickly and sharp. Relationships are like that, too. It’s my relationship with nature, people, the country, the city.
I like pushing the edge of things.
I like working hard to get to the meadow on top of the mountain, where I can rest and watch the light and the grasses and the flowers, endorphins kicking in and I’m blissing out.
It’s good, life is good. My work is a celebration of pushing the edges and experiencing life. When I’m painting, I’m having a visceral response to the medium: the way the pigment melts in the oil and into other pigments, the feel of the oil and the brush on the canvas like butter, the way it smells. My body has a response to it. If I find myself dancing, while I’m working, I know something good is happening.
When I paint, I get excited. Trying to describe my brushstroke is almost sexual. Strokes, stroking, dipping, is sensual. It just is. A good painting turns me on.
Cycling inspires me, too. I love how it makes me feel strong. I love the endorphin kick.
When I’m talking about art and thinking about it, it all boils down to sensuality. The sensual experience of this temporal existence, and responses and relationships to it are what really turned me on. I think that diving into the sensual is almost spiritual. It’s not like I’m unconscious, it’s more I’m hyper-conscious.
The subtle is powerful.
The sensual experience of life inspires me that moving through the woods, and taking in all the forest, the grasses and the meadows and seeing it change throughout the year. As I ride the same trails again and again, it’s such a turn on.
It’s also the change that we exact on nature. As a human being I’m working out my feelings about that. All this beauty and we’re willing to cut it down.
How are we a part of nature, and exist in it, without destroying it? Because I exist, something is being destroyed – just so I can eat, wear clothes have a roof over my head.
How do I reconcile my own existence? It’s a cycle.
I make art because I don’t want to skitter along the surface I take from the world because I exist. So I better live deeply and find ways to give back.
Art is a way of showing gratitude for my life and the world I live in.
Yeah, that makes sense.
That makes sense.
Peace.
- What inspires you?
- How do you respond to the sensual?
- Do you recognize the power of subtlety?
- How do you show gratitude?
Thanks for watching!
My latest art show is up for one more week, until October 30, 2021, at the HeArt Box Gallery. Check it out! Once these paintings come down, they will not be available for sale or to see for several months. I will be on the road and will not have access to the work.
Have a beautiful day!
Holly
October 22, 2021
Flagstaff, AZ
holly troy ~ sacred folly 
Wow,this powerful dear and precise to the point.
What inspires me is my purpose to live,to light a candle to nature,with everything that nature supports always gives back to nature,the said cycle.
I have learned that if only humanity would each identify their purpose,there could be a very wonderful universe of effortless flow of creativity free of violent drives.
Its this individual purpose that connects us to nature,it enables our interdependence as social beings.
Our ministry has severally been engaged through God’s grace in peoples’ lives interventions, saving lives from deadly points but whenever the Lord beckons to these people to support our ministry in one way or the other,many do urgue,”Freely you’re given to freely give.”
Well,that’s precisely in order, but do these people understand the divine law of wealth creation and circulation?
The above scripture text could be alluded to mean that no body should charge a price tag on any fruit of grace ministry since if that be granted then the poor may not find justice and no price tag could be comparable to a human life but that don’t meant we don’t give back to God.
God’s blessings and Love,
Maurice,
For,
Certainwaycreation@wordpress.com
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Thanks, Maurice! Interdependence . . . mmm hmm!
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Welcome dear and God’s blessings.
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Hello Holy Troy.
I would really wish to hear about this “interdependence* idea from you if you don’t mind.
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In response to you comment about nature and interdependence. I should probably write a post about this – but in short – we all breathe the same air. And of course, when we help others, we help ourselves. We are all connected. Anyway – that’s the short gist of it.
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Wow,that sounds lovely.
Please go ahead and write that post,eagerly waiting to learn from it.
Best wishes for an inspired writing.
Thanks and God’s blessings,
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thank you. best wishes to you as well!
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Welcome.
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And, you asked kick-ass questions… the kind of questions that themselves build sanctuaries…
~ What inspires you?
~ How do you respond to the sensual?
~ Do you recognize the power of subtlety?
~ How do you show gratitude?
These are wonderful sanctuaries of questions built.
What inspires me?
Beauty and breath-as-prayer experience. And, that doesn’t always mean pleasant as I don’t waste trouble. And, beauty is messy, that mess that doesn’t need to be cleaned up called experience. Pretty is too rigid, too done, too too. Makeup on beauty is an accent, a flourish, a subtlety, a gesture. Makeup on pretty is the persona itself that itself is also the wayward identity not even on the journey whose name is usually Narcissus or Narcissa without Eros looking on. Pure Logos of stale Ego without Ego being the vessel in which to pour the heart of the matter to give it form. I find that beauty both listens and speaks from the heart, and pretty is often just a bunch of talk that skips stones never diving in (like in your video) and remains a bunch of fish scales that are always clamoring for the nipple so to speak… rather than using them… for, back to sensuality. Reminds me of the person saying the following, and then going completely silent… “You talk a good game, but can you box?”
How do I respond to the sensual?
As requisite.
The sensual is requisite. If there’s no heart of the matter, what’s the point?
Hmmm, love that ‘requisite’ may or may not be a sensual word. Ok. Hmmm. No, sensuality has the Fully Monty of the Both~And. I’ll stick to that. Maybe not like super glue, though will stick.
Example that no judge will do anything but slam the gavel down with a smile and, “Dismissed. No rebuttal allowed”…
Ex: A 4-year old goes to a birthday party, and there is no birthday cake. The 4-year old says, “What’s the point?”
DISMISSED
Do I recognize the power of subtlety?
Yes. I live my life by powerful nuance. An intense acumen with nuance and subtlety has been my highest accolade, and most received. I have been moved by the subtlest of influences, the dye drop in the clear water doesn’t cover the FICP — Functionally-Inter-related-Compnent-Parts of my interdependency with subtlety, with nuance. Operative example is IV The Emperor in regards to my life. I am walking along, and my ‘empire’ (of Self) of course moves along with me. I am walking along. Step. Step. Step by step. At one point I turn, and step in a different direction. My whole Self moves with me from that point forward in that single, subtle, change-of-direction step. Well, unless I miss some inner mutiny somewhere. 😉 Then, of course FLAT on my face or 100 Gs into the wall at the missed turn. Hey, if I’m alive, I continue. If I’m dead, 100 Gs into the wall is a story at the afterlife Diner.
How do I show gratitude?
By stopping full stop, regardless. There is nothing more important. Meetings can be cancelled or rescheduled. Gratitude aligns with life timing. When it occurs, that is the time for it to occur and be engaged. I turn. I smile or tear. I engage with eyes, or just my stance — going blind was my worst fear early on with the visual language as my mother tongue… so, seamless Eugene of contingency if I ever lose my sight. I acknowledge 1st without words. I say thank you most times, though sometimes the smile is plenty so as to not to add musical interference patterns to the silence with those two words. They can sound at their time once the wonderful gratitude Silence has washed both shores in an engaged way. And, not moving from that connected point until the waves have washed both shores and both connect and seamless segue to next. ‘Thank You’ is requisite, though not always instant in word-form.
Thanks for asking. What a wonderful, quaternal sanctuary in 4 questions. Reminds me now of my favorite 4 questions….
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Seamless Eugene. That’s a new one, Otto (Autocorrect). Seamless Segues of…
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Love this! Big yes!
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🙂
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Badass, full-on Nature’ll kill Ya though thrive anyway video. Big nods to the dignity in difference of not knocking off the sharp edges and instead experiencing them, moving around them to not get cut… and maybe even learning them enough to get the proper whetstone to dance into their sharpening.
Oh yes, your video made sense! It made sense in deep knowings rather than beliefs. In life-affirming yesses rather than canned expectations that tippy-toe around. Heck, walking on eggshells? That’s for making compost. Big Abrazos nods. Big Abrazos nods.
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Thanks, Jordan! I had to take a break from all the paring down and releasing books and just do something with what wrote! Why write if it’s gonna sit in a box in some dusty storage unit – waiting for a mouse to make a nest of it?
I have got so much more to do! But for now, this is where I’m at.
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You’re welcome! Excellent! Love that. It is a great video, and sounds in it like you are addressing Nature with a capital ‘N’ straight up with life-poetry in the living… Your Life, Your Way. Good for you!
There’s a book I have, “The Vagabond Way,” that might be of interest. Very much about the nomadic lifestyle, and even simply great from a frugality and resourcefulness perspective I will try to locate. I had big nods to it. Most likely with the movers, though, and in NM… lol, Manana Time doesn’t equal tomorrow, just means ‘not right now.’ 😉 I’ll see if I can get it in hand.
Kudos to your doing a Musical Moira, your Inner Rhythms rather than expected chronological time. I’ve been Astro-diggin’ Moira to put Saturn in his place for some time. Heck, if he’s gonna be so structured, then he needs to make up his mind and stay put and resolve structural forces… put his money where his mouth is and practice what he preaches. :). I won’t of course get too comfortable BBQing Saturn like opposing Counsel across the Mediation table. He’s… ummm… just a bit bigger than me. I have the “RUN, RUN NOW” Saturn’s free and advancing contingency plan… well, not yet, really, though, I understand that off-trail might be a diversionary tactic. 😉 😉
Hmmm, maybe I’d be better to not toy with Saturn, just leave him comfortable Natalya Rx in the 2nd House where he can continue to be on my value side.
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Natalya, lol. Who knew Saturn was Eastern Block? Natally. Maybe, I’ll start taunting Saturn with the nickname ‘Natalya.’ Do you think that’s a smart idea? I mean… heck, he can’t go Sasha on it.
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