I wanted to take this time to share with you a little bit more about my art career as it developed from my childhood until now. In between paragraphs I would like to show you some of my earlier works that contributed to my growth and development as an artist. Some of these artworks have never been showcased in public before, and others like this one at the top has sold for R4800,00 at an art exibition.
My art journey spans over a lifetime of 47 years up until now. I believe that I was born to be an artist and to help awaken this passion within others. Ever since I can remember I was drawn to colourful objects, beauty and lovely sounds. My mother always told me that my sister used to play me classical music on the piano while I was still in the womb, and that it calmed me down. Even to this day I am very sensitive to what kind of music I listen to, and for those of you who know me well, will know that this is true.
But my art development through my school years was never recognised as an important value and skill for me to develop, my family had other more important challenges to face. My oldest sister and my mother did encourage me and tried their best to provide opportunities and support to develop what they saw I guess as a potential for a hobby. It wasn't until the end of my high school education after my aptitude tests that it was revealed that the arts was the best avenue for me to take career wise... but that proved to be too late, as the school I was attending did not provide art as a subject. This shortcoming in my school education would proof fatal as I did not get admission to art school after I finished matric.
My family's financial health was not strong enough to support my further studies and my life went on another journey that developed my spiritual understanding deeper. I shared a watercolour painting that I painted during that period in 1990 last week.
I guess my artistic turn came in 2008 when my need to express myself on canvas was no longer an option. I simply had to go and get art supplies and even though I didn't have a huge budget, I managed to come home with a few basic tubes of acrylic paint, four flat canvas boards and a set of the cheapest brushes that was available. I looked at the paintings I made yesterday and I can still see the hair fibres of the cheap brushes I used, plastered to the canvas board.
The quality of the paint did not matter. I didn’t even have a table to work on at this stage of my life. So I painted on a plastic bag on the floor. Back breaking to say the least, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I answer the call that my soul demanded of me, and out of that was born the painting of the Buddha face. The symbolic meaning to me of these four paintings was an enlightenment and a realisation that I now had the opportunity to take my art more seriously and to do something about it.
From 2008 onwards art started to play a bigger part in my life and I created more and more space for the practice of this craft. But the call became even stronger. In 2016 while I was volunteering as a lay counsellor at Lifeline I seized the opportunity to make use of my art skills to raise money for this non-profit organisation. I created a bespoke painting of water lilies (featured at the top of this blog) and put together an Art-for-Heart art auction event that gave artist who wanted to participate the opportunity to donate their art for auction and the proceeds would go to Lifeline. My painting was part of this exhibition and by the end of the evening, raised the highest amount of money! This event and the tug of war over my painting, made me realise that others see something beautiful in my art and I needed to step up my focus in this area.
It was also during 2016 that I completed my first year training in Logotherapy and through this process I recognised that art is one of my core values and also a unique life calling that formed part of my life purpose. I answered the call and from this point forward, everything I did, was to support my artist within and to afford it every opportunity to develop and to bloom.
In 2017 the opportunity of a lifetime opened to me to enrol in an international coaching certification program with Whitney Freya in the United States. And with her program and coaching, a deeper understanding of my skills and purpose was revealed. The world of online schools and education opened up to me after my husband and I installed WIFI in our home. This simple technology allowed me to exchange my addiction to television for art. After two house breaks after each other, our television got stolen twice, we decided that we didn't need TV in our lives anymore. This precursor event prepared me to make full space available for my art and practice to step in. I no longer have a TV lounge in my home, it now is my art studio.
Ever since my Creatively Fit Coaching Programme, art has become a daily practice for me. The growth in my craft is evident, and the timing of all the realisations in this regard is perfect. In retrospect I see the hand of the Divine guiding me all along on my path. Every closed or opened door, every opportunity, every teacher and every patron that has crossed my path was all part of the grand plan to answer the call to become the rainbow warrior.
The four cornerstones of success are: Patience, Persistence, Resilience and acceptance - Marné Jacobs
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