Waste my heart on fear no more

Diptych in progression

24 x 36

May I have the courage today

To live the life that I would love

To postpone my dream no longer

But do at last what I came here for

And waste my heart on fear no more. 

from A Morning Offering by John O'Donohue

After sitting down with my first cup of coffee, I gather my current stack of books and before opening any of them, I reach for John O'Donohue's; Bless the Space Between Us   and read A Morning Offering; it's a soft, focused reminder of what I'd like to accomplish, daily.

Many moments throughout a day, I do waste my heart on fear. Saturday I left my studio, saying, "It was a good day." When I went back in on Sunday, I could feel the fear beginning to wrestle through my body. 

Looking at what I had painted the day before, my first emotion was confusion. Where to go, what color to put down next, what instrument to use, brush? roller? pour? 

After wandering around, looking about, straightning up, sketching in my notebook, I finally got out of my head and just began.

I can tell when fear is at the helm, it takes on the look of hesitancy.  And the internal conversation begins: charlatan, you don't know what you're doing; you should just sell your supplies and close the door.

I approached the piece above, which looked like this after Saturday's session:

I painted a bit, tried to save certain areas and finally got to a "to hell with it point" and instinctively took a big brush, dipped it in black ink and made some marks, then poured Golden's Dioxazine Purple air brush paint directly onto the canvas. 

Kind of a mess right now, but I like the bold strokes and hopefully when I get back into the studio I will  "waste my heart on fear no more.".