A Word From Barbara

Spirituality has always been a big part of my life.

I guess I always feel lucky because being an artist makes it so obvious that there is a larger creative energy source out there that some call God.

When I create, yes, it is from me, but I also feel connected to a Universal Source.  I feel like I tap into a creative energy that can be called God.  I feel like it is accessible to anyone who can close their mind and open their hearts to it.

It requires that I am in a peaceful place.  That I am not cycling the negative thoughts that so often occupy my mind.

Painting often gets me there.  Meditation can, too, as can sports and other things like writing, too.  Or listening to beautiful music.

Some might say that this is just a state of mind that is achieved through neuro-responses.

I disagree.  I guess there is a certain amount of trust involved that I cannot know or understand everything.

So, back to painting.  I sacrifice a lot to be a painter.  I feel it is a gift that the Universe or God gave me to be of service in the world.  I can bring beauty to the world through my talent.  Also, I feel closer to god when I’m creating.  I feel like I am doing something worth wile and that gives my life meaning.

Before I came to Korea, I went through an existential crisis where I thought I will give up pursuing painting and pick a different career where I could be more of service and be more secure financially.  I still hadn’t realized that painting IS how I can be of service.

Meeting Chang Wan helped me realize that the life of a painter can be a life of spirit, of giving, of service.

Seeing Chang Wan’s paintings around me, inspires me every Saturday.  It is like going to church, and being surrounded by love and symbols of goodness.

I was afraid to move into the sphere of creative energy, because once in it, in order to go through the creative process meaningfully you give up ego.  You just have to let go and trust.  This is something that scares because the ego does not want to be given up on.  It thinks it IS your identity!  In effect, you lose your ‘self’ in the creative process.  This is really an amazing and divine experience once you are there.  But then what can happen is that you lose touch with the material world.  The challenge is how to stay grounded and also regularly be in the spiritual realm.

Recently I have been listening to people like Eckart Tolle, explaining what ego is and the necessity of being aware of it and not letting it control you.

For example, Eckart Tolle calls it, “the pain body”  It is made up of all the negative experiences  that have happened to you in your past and also of the world.  I’ve spent many years sorting through what is my pain body, or what is real and what isn’t.  How do I access the “real me.”  This process I call finding the Truth.  The Truth, beauty, all that is good, love – that is what I call God.

I think of God as the Source.  The source of all, the force of all.  A power that is in every one of us.  One can walk with God when they are being authentic and living life with awareness of the Creative Force within them.  God is an energy that we can access through prayer, devotion, worship and service.  When we act from love rather than fear, we are ‘of God,’ or being true Christians.  When we are creating, we are ‘of God.’  When I am painting, I feel like I’m sitting next to God, if you want to picture God as a form.  God can take many forms, and I accept all forms of God that different religions present.

Next year will be the first time that I will truly devote myself full-time to painting without side distraction.  I want to make it an act of love and service and I will actively ask and pray for God’s guidance throughout.

“The artist, by turning inward to confront the source of all that creates, also helps the larger social order. Because an artist enters the solitude of silence to expand the potential of the imagination, the artist envisions horizons of hope within the human condition. Like a prophet their work calls others to new insights and challenges that inspire faith and hope. The ability to enter creation does not require talent, but the willingness to respond with “Yes.” The artist bridges the realm of the sacred and society by this commitment to return to the center of creativity through prayer.”  http://www.prayerwindows.com/art-as-a-prayer/

I have always been told that my talent is uncommon, but within the art world there are others just as talented or more so.  So, I thought, why should I go into painting, if it’s already being done just fine by others?

Really this was just masking my fear of saying, “Yes,” to the call of God.  I was afraid to just trust and devote myself to my work.  Afraid of losing my ego or worldly identity.  Afraid of losing the security of a regular job and regular life.  However, security is an illusion we agree to believe in.  There is always a trade-off for security.  I have never been willing to trade in my passion to create for a steady job.  Instead, I search for security through relationships with others and increasingly with the Cosmos.

There is a constant battle in me between the worldly life and the spiritual plane (this is why I love Herman Hesse so much, he writes with such talent on this dilemma). I yearn for a middle ground. I yearn for what I don’t have.  This year, I will practice devotion in my work and see where it takes me.  I will look at what is in front of me and try to see with clear eyes and authentically.  We are really so insignificant in the order of the world, I will keep this in mind whenever my ego demands that I should be doing this or that.

As far as marriage and family, I will keep this desire close to me, but try not to let it affect me.  I will remember that it took many years for the wish to have a year of painting to launch my career manifest.  When the time is right and I am ready, all things happen.

My wish for the future is to find a marriage between regularly visiting the spiritual plane and being in the Earthly one.  Perhaps this will come literally through marriage with someone who can keep me grounded or perhaps it will come via another route.

At any rate, this will be a year of authenticity, creativity, courage, and nourishment.

From “Higher Awareness” website:

Making a difference

“The spiritual life is a call to action. But it is a call to … action without any selfish attachment to the results.”

– Eknath Easwaran

Many of us feel deeply that we want to make a difference — we want our lives to mean something in the bigger scheme of life. While this is a noble motive, we might want to explore what lies at its root.

Does the drive to make a difference arise from ego’s need to feel worthy? If my ego is not convinced that I matter, I may want visible proof that I do by making some kind of impact on life.

Soul doesn’t need proof that it’s worthy. Soul thrives in being awake and connected. Perhaps if we let go of the pressure we feel from our ego’s need to be recognized, we will be more open and able to simply live soulfully. And by doing that, we WILL make a difference!

“A person’s worth is contingent upon who he is, not upon what he does, or how much he has. The worth of a person, or a thing, or an idea, is in being, not in doing, not in having.”

– Alice Mary Hilton

I can’t believe I’m only three months away from the end of my contract.  The time since August has been flying!  Chuseok, Halloween, and now Thanksgiving and Christmas are making the time fly by.

Teaching has been getting easier and I’ve grown to love all my kids, even the ones with behavior problems. :/

Last weekend I learned how addicted I am to the internet.  I came home Friday to find my internet not working.  The offices were closed for the weekend, so I had to wait until Monday to learn why my internet was not working.  Ironically, I had just participated in a practice debate with 5th graders at Poly on why social networking sites do more good than harm.  The 5th graders asserted that social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, etc) are harmful because you can get addicted to them.  Stacy (on the teachers’ team) rebutted by saying, “Who’s to say that being addicted to something harmless is harmful?”

Well, I can say this, 80% of my socializing here is done online.  So, I learned just how much I rely on not only social networking sites, but email and internet radio and news.

Thankfully all of Korea is wired and there is a coffee house on every corner.

Saturday night I was in a really good mood.  Everything that everyone was doing was just ‘cute’ to me.  I just felt loving towards everyone.  I went to Seoul to a performance art show at a bar in Itaewon.  It was rather absurd, and I laughed a lot.  I think I laughed at things that weren’t necessarily intended to be the funny parts.  While we watched, we sketched.  That was the idea of the meetup, it was a Sketch group that meets at bars to sketch people.  I enjoyed myself.  Especially since it only takes 1 hour now to get to Itaewon on the new fast train!

I am going to try to paint this picture with words of a beautiful scene I saw at the sauna today.  There was an older woman with very short hair.  She was being held up by two young women, perhaps her daughters.  She was very weak.  They sat her down gently on a small, oval stool.  They took the shower head and wet her short, closely cropped hair.  Her shoulders hung weakly, under the orange hand towel placed over them.  The women wet the towel with warm water.  She raised her eyes and looked into the eyes of the girl holding the shower head.  She seemed to be saying a deep, heartfelt thank you with those eyes.  The girls washed her carefully, then led her to the hot water bath.  They picked up each leg, slowly, to lead her over the edge of the bath.  We all looked on the scene and some of us had tears in our eyes to witness such tender love and compassion.  I had tears in my eyes, remembering the weak state my own mother was in when she was going through chemotherapy.  It is possible that this woman was going through the same ordeal.

There are so many other sauna scenes I’ve witnessed that I want to paint.  It is such a lovely place to be in.  It is an escape from the rough and tough world outside.  Inside a garden of Eden, women only, where people are gentler and spirits are soothed.

I met a woman who spoke English and she is going to ask the owner if I can photograph there when no one is around.  I can’t wait to hear the reply!

I was feeling so high yesterday.  I knew it was going to be a good day of painting at Chang Wan’s, and it was.  I worked on my new painting of horses.  I’m finally making the paintings I wanted to do when I went to Argentina in 2007.  It’s coming along nicely and I’m enjoying painting large like this.  I haven’t painted horses large like this yet, and I’ve been waiting to.

It’s so wonderful to have a painting companion.  We just sit in silence, or listening to classical music, painting together.  I like having the company of another painter in the room.  I draw energy and love from his presence and the presence of his work all around us.

I stayed until 2pm.  Afterwards, I went for a hike up the mountain next to his house.  I forgot to take pictures though.  My mind must have been spaced out.  That happens after I finish painting.  It’s like housekeeping for my mind, it gets swept out.  With each sigh that I utter, the tension of the week leaves my body.  There were many sighs as I lay on my back watching the sky like a television set.

In other news (I’ve been promising to write this in my blog),  I have decided that it would be better for me to stay in Korea next year in order to focus on finishing a portfolio for applying to school in 2012.  I think the seed of this realization had already been planted a while back.  I did not, however, have proof that it would be the right thing to do.  Now, I have met a small, expat artist community that will provide me with the missing need:  a studio space.  Artist, Mike Stewart, the director of Jankura Art Space, which will open in January,  said I could also teach workshops there.

Yeah, I’m sad I’m not coming back either.  I miss you and all my loved ones more than I can say.  However, my gut tells me it’s the thing I need to do.  That is, of course, if I get the right job here for the spring.  In Philly, I don’t know where I’d live, where I’d have a studio, and where I’d work part time and make enough money to pay the rent.  Here, if things work out the way I think they will, I should be able to find a job teaching adults 3 hours a day for about 1, 200/mo.  This would be enough to pay for a $500/mo rent.  I’m not sure how much studio rent will be…but I would also tutor on the side, which pays about $40/hour and I could teach art lessons   The thing that clinched it is meeting Mike Stewart at the Sunday sketch group.  He’s been here eight years, and is married to a Korean woman, so he has a lot of knowledge about life here.  We were talking and he convinced me that although this is not my land, and I don’t think I could ever feel at home here, staying one more year would be grasping an opportunity.

I hope to continue painting with Chang Wan next year, too.  I seem to draw such inspiration from him and his studio.  Jin, the retired art history professor I met, has photographic equipment to photograph large-scale paintings.  This will be perfect for the end of the year when I’ll need to shoot my work.  The original canvas I’ll have to roll up and send.  I haven’t done this, but this is doable.

It’s interesting how extremely different I can feel from day to day about staying here.  Some days, I feel so lonely and homesick and want to return home more than anything.  On other days, I feel my time is not finished here, that there is so much more to explore and more of Asia to see before I leave.  Also, I have been enjoying a sense of freedom here that I don’t feel in the States.  I’ve learned that the lonliness is the price to be paid for this feeling of freedom.  But, the lonliness always passes.  Those periods always end when I meet someone new, or a friend reaches out to me unexpectedly.  There is always art and nature, constant companions and healers.

So, I have been cultivating the ability to feel love while having no one in particular I am in love with.  I have been practicing how to just “be in love” in general rather than specifically in love with someone.  As soon as a person enters that sphere, problems always arise.  Insecurities surface, desires, pain from the past, anxiety – it seems endless.  For now, I am very content with the long distance relationship I have with Antonio in Florence.  It is non-threatening, validating and fun.  The feeling of pure freedom is so romantic to me, I could only be with a man who understood this because he feels the same way.  I am thinking more and more that I need to meet another artist.  I used to think that I wouldn’t be able to be with an artist in a relationship because so many unions I’ve seen between painters end in the female painter sacrificing for the family and supporting the male painter.  Maybe because I don’t understand this, it scares me.

Well that’s all the musings for now!

Tschuss

Yesterday was Armed Forces Day and tomorrow is National Foundation Day.  Here are excerpt from Wikipedia describing the holidays:

Armed Forces Day (Gukgunuinal) – The day recognizes, venerates, and honors the military forces of the Republic of Korea. In 1950, during the Korean War, South Korean Forces broke through the 38th parallel on October 1.

National Foundation Day (Gaecheonjeol)- The day celebrates the foundation of Gojoseon, the first state of the Korean nation. According to the Samguk Yusa, Dangun founded Gojoseon on the 3rd day of 10th lunar month, 2333 BC. Today, South Koreans celebrate their national foundation on October 3 according to the solar calendar, for convenience sake. “Gaecheonjeol” means “Heaven-opened Day”.

There must have been a ceremony at the elementary school next to Easyview for the holidays yesterday, because there was music and microphones starting at 9am.  I listened as I had my morning coffee at sat at the computer.

The day was sunny and cool at about 60 F.  I was in good spirits.  I was going to play soccer for the first time again in almost two months.  The game was a friendly match on a team I hadn’t played with before.  I met the captain and before long I realized that this was going to be just the type of teammate that I detest, the kind that never shuts up on the field.  As a player who prefers pick up soccer, where no one is barking commands at you, this was not the atmosphere for me.  So, back to looking for another team.  Perhaps I will try starting my own team with like-minded players.

After the game I treated myself to the most famous sauna in Seoul – the Dragon Hill Spa.  What a wondrous invention spas are, though I’m sure they are somehow very wasteful.  There are seven floors, each with a different focus aimed at relaxation, entertainment, sensory indulgence or exercise.  Click on the link to read an article by the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/11/14/travel/20101114-seoul-hours-ss-4.html

My favorite was the outdoor area on the women-only floor.  I was the only one out there under the cold night sky sitting like a pampered princess in her private bath, staring at fake ivy on the tiled walls.  I will definitely have to come back!  And of course, the night would not be complete without another coincidence.  I ran into Peter, whom I had met playing soccer a few months ago.  He happened to be having dinner with colleagues at a bachelor party.  So, I crashed the party and joined the jolly men for some dinner and laughter. It was a nice way to end a day where I hadn’t had any meaningful exchanges with anyone all day.

This is the last long weekend off (Sat-Mon vacation) from Poly before Christmas, so I am determined to make it relaxing, interesting and productive.

After seven months in a new country, one can start to fall in love with it – or at least begin to like it very much.  I wouldn’t say I am falling in love with Korea, but I did feel more at home in this strange land after getting a much needed shot of culture last weekend during our four-day holiday weekend.

On Sunday I went to Seoul and visited three museums and saw Deoksu palace and the changing of the guard.  I started the day at the Seoul Art Center, where I saw the Hundertwasser exhibit my first weekend in Korea.  I went to see Impressionist paintings on tour from the Musee D’Orsay.  I was so happy to be re-aquainted with so many classics.  I’m growing to love Renoir more and more, not so much his ladies, but everything else, especially his landscapes.  In one of his landscapes, he set out to depict the ugliness of the new railroad tracks cutting across the French countryside.  However,  he couldn’t help but to make the tracks look beautiful even if he wasn’t trying. They blend right in with the fruit trees and greenery in his landscape.  Everything he paints becomes representative of a romantic ideal.

The Birth of Venus was on display, along with works by Millet, Rochegrosse and Bonnard.  It was a pleasure revisiting paintings by so many artists I admire and who speak a language that is familiar to me.  The last time I saw them, I was 18 in Paris with Suzanne, 19…remember Suz?

At about 3pm, I hopped on a subway and continued on to City Hall area towards the Seoul Museum of Modern Art.  At the subway exit, I asked a city employee that they have stationed in some stations to help foreigners, for directions.  He told me the museum was right next to Deoksu palace, but first I should watch the changing of the guards because it starts in fifteen minutes.   I’m glad I did.  There was a small crowd and we watched the procession which lasted about twenty minutes.

As I watched, I noticed a sign advertising an exhibition of works from the Whitney Museum’s collection.  I decided to buy a ticket for this instead of going to the SOMA.  The works were housed in the National Museum of Contemporary Art, inside the walled palace grounds.  Deoksu is one of many palace grounds in Seoul.  It was built around 1392 during the Joseon Dynasty.  It is also called a place where “the East meets the West” because it has two western-style buildings and  a western-style fountain.  I sat there for a while feeding a magpie.  It was so peaceful and reminded me of Europe.

The show was neatly arranged into three themes: American Icon and Everyday Life, Object and Identity, and Object and Perception.  It was a real contrast to see early 20th century American art after seeing 19th century French and Italian Impressionist paintings.  The themes explored are so different,  as well as the language used to create the artistic interpretations.  I am more a fan of the classical art, but, I was re-acquainted with many modern artists whom I admire, pre-Pop artists like Rauschenburg and Jim Dine, who were interested in aesthetics and conceptual art.  In fact, much of the art I saw there I like.  There were examples by artists I respect and admire from the late 20th century, many of whom are still alive – Oldenburg, Sandy Skoglund, Christo, Jasper Johns, Sherri Levine and Jessica Stockholder to name a few. I find beauty in their work, but they are not executed in a language I would use.  Too much thinking involved, I am working more intuitively…but I’m interested in this intellectual process.

I enjoyed walking through the Korean style living quarters and exploring the wooded paths around them as the sun was setting.  I still had an hour to see some more art at the SOMA.  I wasn’t sure if they would let me in an hour to closing time, but they did.  There was a show of 14 young Korean painters:

“Rhetoric of the Images intends to suggest a direction in which Korean art should develop through a systematic examination of the ways of images’ existence in various forms in the context of diversifying contemporary art…”

I enjoyed all the work, which was diverse, and it provided me with names to further explore online.

I ended the day with some spicy street food called Tteokbokki.  It is a long rice cake with a texture like chewy dough.  The sauce is hot and spicy made with chili peppers.  It’s savory and spicy and comes with a whole boiled egg, and sometimes fish cakes or sliced meat.  It cost 3,000 won (which is about $3)  I joined Simon, Jessica, and a friend of hers for a couple drinks before calling it a night.

Monday we went to a Korean Folk Village near Ori.  It is only about a half hour bus ride away.  I had no idea what to expect, but the day was beautiful and the rest of Korea was all with family, so what better place to be than a place that celebrates the history of Korea. It turns out many other Korean families had the same itinerary.  The place was packed, and I was told this is the busiest day of the year by a landslide.  The grounds were huge and filled with the objects, animals, food, shelter, etc that Koreans used and lived in every day before modernization.  At 2pm we sat down to see the first of the three shows that are performed every day here.  I had no idea I was in for such a treat!  The first was the equestrian show.  I didn’t know until a Korean told me that the performers were Mongolian.  They were such gifted horsemen – and women, completely natural on horseback.  It was a real thrill to watch them.

Next, I fell in love with the Korean performers of the Farmer’s Folk Dance.  The music, dance movements and costumes were all new to me.  I especially enjoyed the wonderfully playful hats the men wore – and all the performers were men.  Some had these huge colorful pom-poms, others, big puffy feathers that looked alive.  Whenever the men walked or moved their heads, the feathers seemed to be talking or laughing.  They reminded me of Muppets.  The younger men wore hat with long strings or thin banners attached.  They would move their heads in choreographed nodding motions and the string/banner would come to life, whipping around in the air, completely under control of the head wearing the hat it was attached to.  Then they would do these amazing sideways jump turns that looked like taekwando maneuvers.  Everyone was smiling, the performers, the crowd, and we were all clapping to the music.

We ate in a food court very unlike an American food court.  Everyone sits on the floor in under Korean-style roofs and we eat organic and healthy Korean food, as unlike fast food as you can get.  Any food that is not fast food and prepared simple and fresh, I like, so I really enjoy Korean home-cooking.

The best meal I’ve had so far is the lunch I got the next day (Tuesday) at Chang Wan’s.  They invited me to have lunch upstairs in the house after we finished painting.  We had leftovers from Chuseok.  I wish I had taken pictures!  Even as I write this now, I am feeling hungry.  We had this beef they call L.A. beef (I’m not sure why).  It is marinated for two days in a marinade of pears, garlic, oil and I forget the rest.  It was perhaps the tastiest and most tender beef I’ve ever had.  Then there were the typical Korean Banchan (side dishes) but all homemade, fresh, not overpowered with spice and made with love, so 10x tastier!