Few months ago, as we were still in lock down, I had to move. Surrounded by boxes, without a WiFi and, completely isolated I decided to start painting. Up until then I was waiting to find a studio to pick up painting... it was never a good time to get a studio!
So, one morning tired of this excuse, I went to buy tempera colours. All I needed was primary colours, my fingers and a plastic knife... despite wanting to paint on large canvas (for which I am waiting to have a studio) I thought that I could start with recycled paper (high quality paper from a vintage catalogue).
Messy Art by Me was born!
As a child, I painted and drew all the time. I learnt several techniques and forgot them all in the years I believed I wasn’t an artist but just a scientist. In these past couple of months, through the daily practice of messy art I have come to know and learn artfully.
As I learnt to claim my heART back art came back nocking at the door of my imagination.
A deliberate artistic inquiry to explore life and work through the lens of art what I embarked on without knowing or expecting any particular outcome. This is exactly what art as a learning experience means to me. It means that we learn as we practice. It means that we are not the teachers but art is. It means we have to be willing to “sell our cleverness to buy bewilderment” (Rumi).
It means that we do not look at art and artists thinking “what can it give me or my business?”. In fact the very opposite. It requires asking: “What can I give to let art and artists express, create, learn?” It means not making a business case for art so we can extract value from it. We do not ask “what is the business case for art” instead we ask “What is the business (world) that we need to imagine to make space for art?” It means we are willing to witness before we claim to lead. It means we are capable to sense before we can make sense. It means we start embracing the artist within ourselves and create a space for evoking and invoking the artist in others too.
Since the lockdown earlier this year many have approached to the arts, and as that started “trending” I have seen an increase explosion of schools, businesses, corporations exploiting the art field. Our usual ways to extract value from everything and turning it into the new trend, another way to exploit art and artists with the latest trends.
Let’s stop right now right here if we truly want a new more inclusive, fair, just, alive…world.
I do not have the answers of how that looks like, or a ready to use step by step process to follow. I have instead inquiries I will probably spend the rest of my life exploring to create time and space to practice (together) some Messy Art:
What if “higher education” was a practice of learning heARTfully instead of teaching tools? (read higher as elevated/evolved and not as exclusive/expensive)
What if work became the enabling of this heARTful learning?
What if leadership was the heART of listening and witnessing?
What do we learn about ourselves, a situation, the workplace... through this heARTful practice? Can we make it a practice to re-NEW harmony and wellbeing?
As I tend and mend heartfully to these questions I sense an undercurrent that is there and not visible to the eyes (nor to the clever mind) yet. What we may call the feminine, the yin, the shadow that is waiting for us to listen, sense, BE… so we can create some Messy Art to express her.
Life is messy, and we got reminded (once again) by the current world turmoils and incertitudes. The meaning we attach to messiness says something about our relationship to control rather than the situations themselves.
Learning is messy and non linear. It becomes wisdom as we experience that messiness in full.
Living fully (heARTfully) might require we start learning to listen to that messiness not to control it but to express it with beauty and harmony.
This messiness requires not taking the highway, the fastest route, the convenient road but the country side road that we do not know while, the GPS (the status quo) keeps repeating “make a U turn”. Can we resist the temptation to make a U-turn? Can we resist the craving to take the first exit into the highway? Can we learn the wild road into the forest before we discover the roses?
If you’re interested to learn more about our knowledge and experience and discuss how we could help through our consultancy, workshops, and talks, drop us a line at fateme@rnewb.com.
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