Painting as "Joy Mining"
This painting has been through several versions before landing here as "Mining for Joy." Its most recent title was "Current Events," inspired by the streaming white marks that seemed to flow in and around various elements which I considered as a way of seeing what's happening in the world today—that there's a flow of life that surrounds events in the headlines. The longer I looked at the painting, however, I saw muddy areas that appeared to block the "flow" of the current. Although I'd already signed and posted the painting, I decided to rework it again.
I've recently been reading essays by David Spangler and in one of them he writes of "joy mining," a simple practice he describes as deliberately looking for "nuggets" of joy as they occur in daily life. I approached "Current Events," then, not simply to eliminate certain parts—the ones I'd been seeing as blockages—but instead with the intention of discovering and amplifying the elements that I experienced as joyful. In the process the parts that seemed to block the flow in the painting, receded and, in some cases, disappeared. I'm pleased with how these newly-emphasized joy nuggets have given the painting (and me) a sense of light and uplift that had eluded me before, a clue that can be beneficially applied to life, for sure!
Spangler writes: "... Joy doesn't have to be a dramatic experience of ecstasy and pleasure. It can be very simple. What you are looking for are moments that hold the potential of heightening you and your energy. [When one] makes a habit of noticing and acknowledging them ... you begin to realize that joy abounds and is all around us and within us for us to draw upon." (from "Holding Wholeness: Being a Generative Source.")
