Calling All Artists :: This Is Your Wake Up Call

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This is a great video of Grace Lee Boggs speaking about the importance of redefining our world.

“The world is waiting for a new dream.”

~Grace Lee Boggs

One of the things I’m having my FEARLESS Painters in IGNITE explore is a redefinition of what it means to be an Artist and a redefinition of their own personal Artistic Lineage.

With all my heart, I believe times are a changin’.  That old structures and paradigms and ways of looking at things no longer serve the greater good and are collapsing or on their way to collapsing.

It’s an exciting, volatile, fertile time to be alive.

It’s an important time to be alive.  For everyone.  All ages.  All races.  All creeds, socio-economic status, and vocation.

But as Artists, we play a vital role in this redefinition that is happening. We lead by example.  We help others and the planet heal.  We bring light to where there is darkness.

And I know this all sounds so big and grandiose that it can feel impossible to figure how little ol’ me or little ol’ you actually fit in it all.  Right?

How can scribbling in your art journal–or painting what makes you happy–or spending time working on Art make a real difference in this world?

I’m here to tell you that it does.  It really does.

And I’m not trying to sell you something or gain your like on Facebook.  I’m here to tell you because I’ve spent my entire life devoted to Art and I know first hand that the old ways of teaching Art–selling Art–and the purpose of Art are collapsing as well.

Artists, this is our wake up call.

It is time to own the gifts that we have been granted.  It is time to share and reach our voices out to others. It is time to answer the calling that keeps us up at night–that itches and itches at us to create–to gather ideas, inspiration, and spirit–to express the messages we hear so loudly in our hearts.

We are being called to be an Artist for a reason greater than our minds can wrap itself around.

So stop thinking we have to fit some old, worn out idea of what an Artist is.  It is no longer valid.  The internet has taken the place of galleries–the Artist themselves have taken their destiny into their own hands–and if you yell out your call–a tribe of kindred Souls will gather to meet you.

It is time to redefine Artist.  That’s the message I’m instilling in my IGNITE FEARLESS Painting Teacher Trainees.  That’s the truth of where Art is right now.

We are no longer just machines that pump out pretty things.  We are healers.  Light bringers. Visionaries.  Entrepreneurs with hearts wider than the Grand Canyon and the ability to move money like energy.  We are here to help the next generation.   We are here to secure change.

We are here to remind every living Soul that WE ARE ALIVE.

In all honesty, it doesn’t matter who becomes President.  Real change ALWAYS happens from the bottom up.  It starts with heart-to-heart conversations over coffee or wine. Real change is woven out of ideas and truth and people coming together with passion. It starts with integrity and believing that anything is possible.

Channel your energy.  Vote, yes, vote.

But know that a greater change is happening that no president in office can control with tax cuts, legislature, or fear tactics.

But we can make the greatest change as Artists right here–right now.

Just pick up the paintbrush.
Take a deep breath.
Call yourself an Artist–
And actually mean it.