What are your secret sources of Courage and Beauty - in art and life?
“Courage is amazing because it can tap in to the heart of fear, taking that frightened energy and turning it towards initiative, creativity, action and hope. When courage comes alive , imprisoning walls become frontiers of new possibility, difficulty becomes invitation and the heart comes into a new rhythm of trust and sureness. There are secret sources of courage inside every human heart; yet courage needs to be awakened in us. The encounter with the Beautiful can bring such an awakening. Courage is a spark that can become the flame of hope, lighting new and exciting pathways in what seemed to be dead, dark landscapes.”
- John O’Donohue
What are your secret - or not-so-secret - “sources of courage?”
For me, courage is activated in my art-making process, for sure.
And also in the midst of rights, choice, bodily autonomy, voice and freedom being purposefully taken from others. (I’m in the states, where Roe v. Wade was just overturned, and the implications are huge… - it’s on my mind).
Indeed, it may at times be fear itself, or righteous rage and the nuances of grief and empathy that trigger a surge of courage within me… a pull toward action, presence, movements of wit{h}ness. That seems right, when I reflect on it.
Does “the Beautiful” activate my courage, though? I am beginning to suspect it might, as I consider O’Donohue’s take in the quote above.
I have wondered about unexpected shifts in my painting practice and process - or rather, in my artistic inclinations and curiosity as I paint.
There’s been a more conscious movement within me toward seeking and experimenting with beauty more (as I see and feel it). An interest in the aesthetic, raw romance and playful, organic mystery of nature’s chaos, particular parts and flowing layers mingling with its simultaneous spaciousness, simplicity and color-light kaleidoscopes.
This has caused me to naturally devote much of my practice time to two things, it seems:
1) more deliberate “studies” of landscapes and plant life - something I would have hated at a different chapter in my art practice, but absolutely adore now for the realms of contemplation, tender care, and presence it activates.
a gouache study in-process of a dogwood tree photo I took this Spring
And…
2) an expanded, intentional exploration of my intuitive painting approach - from a purely free-form associative + spontaneous creative expression, to welcoming more of my idiosyncrasies into the process as it moves along - including my conscious discernment, dance with controlled movements, curious preferences, personal mark-making lexicon and lived experience as a visual artist.
It’s hard to put to words, what we are doing when we make visual art, isn’t it?… Embracing PARADOX may be the best way I can say it today… and I certainly find intuitive beauty, insight and courage in embracing paradox in my creative process.
So, I find myself making studies of places and particular natural elements, AND also making intuitive paintings pretty regularly these days… and somewhere in that freedom to explore both, the approaches are marrying and coming into something new.
gouache painting on 10” x 10” panel by artist Hali Karla
This desire for “beauty” in my art wasn’t necessarily in my process before, at least not in such a conscious way, or for a long time.
I was fine-art trained after all, and beauty alone is rarely enough of an edgy concept or motivation for the contemporary fine art academia gatekeepers.
Funny, since the beautiful is so vast and subjective anyway, that it has its own battles with repression.
The arts, whose task once was considered to be that of manifesting the beautiful, will discuss the idea only to dismiss it, regarding beauty only as pretty, the simple, the pleasing, the mindless and the easy. Because beauty is conceived so naively, it appears as merely naive, and can be tolerated only if complicated by discord, shock, violence, and harsh terrestrial realities. I therefore feel justified in speaking of the repression of beauty.
- James Hillman
The repression of beauty… of nature… of women. Yes, there is a thread of connection for me in this… and a rising of courage within.
It is courage that compels us to create or co-create at all, isn’t it? I’ve made nothing of any substance, impact or beauty without courage to try.
from printmaking in college (90s) | Hali Karla
I look back again, and I do see I’ve explored forms of beauty in my art many times, though - from a different angle. Much of my art explorations used to be about messages around beauty standards, expectations and distorted ideas + prejudices placed on women.
Other times, my makings were driven purely by what is visually beautiful to me - what evokes feeling, sensation, a lingering pause.
We circle again and again with our driving forces of interest and perspective, our very sources of courage, if we make art, don’t we?
I suppose it’s just showing up again, with a new layer of conviction for me to explore, a different facet of beauty’s power, and a different iteration of my own voice and presence to life and seeing and making space for what evokes movement within.
detail of gouache dogwood painting study | Hali Karla
Honestly, it could also be this simple:
I could just need to hold onto a little more felt beauty in the world, in the moments of my days - imaginal beauty or grounded in-the-real - reminders of what+where the joy, life and hope lie beyond the complexity of human-induced atrocities and illusions.
Or maybe, as I’m wondering today, it’s not beauty-for-beauty’s-sake that I seek so much in my art, as it is the way that finding beauty in my practice, in how I see and make, awakens my courage for all the rest of life, as I spend time in relationship to its transformative iterations and possibilities in nature and in my creative energy and process.
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
-Rachel Carson
The way I see it, we ought to source our courage and creativity wherever we can these days.
So, I ask again -
What are YOUR sources of courage these days?
How can you make more time to encounter them?
What is the Beautiful to you?
Keep finding the beautiful and true to you, and keep making your art, creative friends.
~ h
Would you like monthly updates & encouragement for your creative practice?
Join my substack for my free newsletter:
