The Song From Today's Episode: The Water Of Life'The Road For Artists' Community 📿The 'God And Art' Book SeriesTranscripts The best artists have no walls to creation; no curtain of self; no fear of perceptions of others. They are in direct communion, and so their art vibrates with life and emanates God. When artists create, they free fall. Creation is dampened by, 'What will others think of me and my art?' Creation is boxed in by, 'Is this okay to share?' Creation is halted creating through the mask of identity. When all perceptions cease, creation creates itself. That I call free fall. This episode we explore Picasso. The prolific genius that destroys the old and invents the new. We’ll explore the madness of his creative output, his selfishness and ego mania as a trap on the spiritual path of art, and examine the unlearning of everything to become a child again. In Picasso’s words: ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist when he grows up.’ Picasso was born and raised in Spain in the 1880s. He learned painting from his father at a very young age. The myth goes he painted before he could talk. First, he learned realism and painted with marvelous accuracy only to destroy all norms, and rules, and invent his own style of painting. To pour his soul onto the canvas. You can only create what you are and he was his paintings. His most immediate and authentic soul expression was his art. That divinity is what we can still marvel at today. In his 91 years, he created anywhere between 20,000 to over 30,000 creations (sources differ). That is almost one creation per day for the entirety of his life. He painted a painting each morning. That puts art into perspective for me. When was the last time I wrote a song a day? And there I thought my ‘song a week’ was impressive. I am astonished by Picasso’s prolific creative genius. It almost seems like an obsession; a deep internal need to express his soul through painting. I imagine that when he created art he felt most like himself. Perhaps his world wasn’t the ease of flow that painting offered. Painting, being his communion with God. The rest of his life (from multiple sources states) he was an egomaniac and used people for his career advancement and women for creative energy and pleasure. If that is true he mistook the vessel for God. He called himself ‘God’ many a times. But the vessel is just a vessel, not God. He accessed God in one area of life and failed to bring it to the rest of his life. Egoism is the greatest trap. To take the divine and attribute it to oneself, brought unhappiness to the rest of his life. I marvel at his creative output and his divine creations but I wouldn’t want to experience his life. I revere his shattering of the old. His bravery to birth his soul's expression regardless of all the resistance his early modern paintings were met with. It takes guts to break the rules and invent the new. The crowd didn’t yet know what it wanted and he invented taste. Yes, he shaped the future of art. He followed his instincts throughout. He stayed true to himself. He was unapologetically, Picasso. By painting every day, painting became Picasso’s identity. He could relax into his work more and more until, finally, he disappeared into his work, and the painting was left. To flow with life and give oneself fully to the task at hand is meditation, non-action/ non-doing. Life takes the lead and you are the witness to the divine unfoldment through your hands. Painting, painting, painting. Gain mastery, then forget it all and paint. Learn from the best then break the mold and paint like your soul paints. Paint like a child! Step aside and meditate deeply through your work. If I have learned one thing in my 15 years of songwriting it’s this: I am not supposed to make art but be my art. My work is not an accumulation but my practice of dissolution. To master my skill, then give it back to God and let life work through my hands in divine alignment. My work meditates on me. It is my greatest joy and my salvation. With each creation I heal and those creations seem to impart that healing to the world. The experience of meditation and love seems to rub off on people. That is the true value of art. When I give my life to serve others I heal through my work and add beauty to the world. I dissolve my ego through my work, and my work saves me. It heals my soul and liberates me from my accumulated crust of past. Each creation I am a little more soul and a little less past. My work truly is my salvation. By delighting myself, I delight the world. The world responds to my sharing my soul through authentic self-expression. Love can only be met with love. The right people get attracted and the wrong people are repelled. My work of making and sharing art is my spiritual discipline. Hide it all in your art. Conserve it with your heart. Let it enter the world. And repeat. Create living artifacts. And create a lot ...
