FEARLESS We Paint: Guest Post By Kelley Walker

If you’d asked me last spring what it meant to live fearlessly, I might have mumbled something about saying “yes” or traveling solo. Those things take courage, no doubt, but for me they’re somehow far less terrifying than truly and completely embracing my creativity. I’ve always been creative – that’s not an issue, but my creativity has almost always been bound by a whole laundry list of shoulds and oughtas and what-will-they-thinks. A feeling of not-worthy-enough has always contained me, even in my bravest moments.

Finding Connie, BIG and The Tribe has created a tidal shift in that kind of thinking. I’ve started letting go of boundaries that suggest my art must meet some standard set by somebody else and I’m learning instead to create things that please ME. I’m learning to play and experiment and forget about “wasting” materials or making a mess. I’m learning that art is a way of exploring what’s going on in my head and my heart and getting those thoughts out into the open as a way of releasing the “junky-junk” (as Connie describes it).

I’m learning to let the paint, the emotions, and my intuition guide my hand and (after years of constrictive rules) be happy to let go of my “plan” and follow whatever bizarre path my muse might take me down.

And I’m learning that there is simply no room in a creative life for playing it small and that my expression, whatever that might look like, must be released or else lost forever…

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”

~Martha Graham

I think the thing that resonates loudest for me in this fearless journey is that there’s really nothing to hold me back – and I don’t just mean creatively. Life is about choices and every day presents an opportunity to choose the path I want to take (or, better yet, the path my intuition is guiding me towards). The only constraints are me and my imagination and, in embracing a fearless life, both are limitless.

My journey has just begun.