Everything Happens in the “In-Between”
November 19, 2020 6:16 pm
Time is still. What’s usually noisy is quiet. I choose yellow, I tear some paper and glue it down, and I scrub my canvas with a sponge. This is what’s happening in my “In-Between” and nothing else matters right now.
When I’m painting, everything happens. There’s stuff that has happened, and it has an influence on my “Today.” There’s stuff that will probably happen tomorrow, and it does its best to creep in on the present moment. Painting pushes that all away. I create in the “In-Between” with my focus on “Right Now.” Everything that’s important to me is about colors, memories, shape, and line. “Yesterday” and “Tomorrow” will try and creep in, but they are uninvited and easy to push back into their places. My canvas is a shield, and my paintbrush is a wand. I create my own fantastical, magical world, and I am in my own world. Each creative choice I make is all that matters. Everything is right now.
People often hate waiting for tomorrow, and they often wish that they could go back in time. This makes the liminal “In-Between” uncomfortable and often anxiety producing. This is often how it is for me, but not when I am painting. As I create, I waft about in the space between time. A place that should be full of tension and unrest is transformed into a shelter from past and future storms. I have carved out a safe place where it’s good to wait, and I don’t often want to leave. I paint in a liminal space and it is good.
You can paint alongside me. We can be someplace lost, suspended in time, and completely ours. We can be free here: free to choose some simple things and let them be everything for right now. Our “In-Betweens” can be a gift when we approach them through the lens of our creative process.
This blog is all about encouraging you and me to carve, for ourselves, a safe place: a place that allows us to experience the simple pleasures of the present moment. It’s true. We must wait. We also must deal with the anxieties of yesterday and tomorrow. However, “Right Now” can be mine and yours if we take time to explore through creative process. Seek a creative expression that can transform your present moment. What do you make, or what will you make? How can it show you that everything happens in the “In-Between”?
Choose Everything, 2020
