This has been a very Muse-centric month for me.
I’m working on a series of Muse paintings, writing and trying guided meditations for meeting the Muse, and developing a weird sequence of conversations with my Muse/ Muses.
Muse. Muse. Muse.
I have made an executive decision that there isn’t just one Muse, or the meagre nine Muses allotted by the Ancient Greeks. I’ve decided that, in fact, Muses are infinite. There is a muse for everybody, often even more than one. The air is thick with Muses.
This fact may take a while to trickle down to Wikipedia but until then I’m just going with it. While I wait I may amuse myself by coming up with a fun collective noun for Muses. (A shiver of Muses? A thrill? A flutter?)
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The image at the top of the post is a painting I finished last week called ‘Meadow Muse’. It’s a prototype for a ‘project’ that is coming in the next few weeks.
As a prototype this is, in one sense, a total failure. Because the look of the paintings that follow it is very different–much brighter, more dynamic.
But I still like this one, it’s a just more of a Victorian Romantic version of the Muse than where I want to end up.
My default emotional setting is melancholy, and I think this painting was a way of getting past that in order to access the more vibrant paintings that are on their way.
I still really like that melancholy part of me and the art that comes from there, but creativity is about exploring new directions too, and I’m excited to access different parts of me and discover the kind of art that’s waiting to arrive.
I don’t feel like I’ll be losing what the melancholy side offers, either. I’ll always have that to draw on, and it’ll show up here and there no matter what I do, anyway.
I want these paintings to be dynamic and inspirational. I want to inspire other people with my paintings and be inspired myself. I want the paintings to be bright and boisterous and busy, because that’s what I want for myself. That’s the kind of Muse I want to invoke.
And if I’m being called to do paintings of Muses, then it seems wrong for them not to be invocations.
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That doesn’t mean I don’t like this particular painting, I like all my paintings. Even if everyone in the whole world hated a painting of mine, I would still love it. Even if it sucked.
I’ve done many, many paintings that sucked and I still love them.
Even though the physical action of painting means covering a canvas with paint, for me it still has the quality of uncovering something that was always there. I believe every object or being that I paint, or draw, every character who arrives in one of my poems, has some kind of a life, a life that was always there, waiting to be uncovered. I have no reason to believe that, but I do.
None of that makes any sense to me when I see it in words, but it makes sense whenever I have a brush, or a pencil, in my hand.
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As I was looking at this painting the other day, and thinking about the title ‘Meadow Muse’ and what was going in in the painting, it struck me that the Muse could be the woman writing from her pot of golden ink, or could just as likely be the hummingbird at her ear, or could even be the charged space between them.
It was like seeing one of those young woman/old woman optical illusion drawings. I got a small shiver and ideas started pouring in for the current paintings I’m working on.
That’s something I love about the creative process–the way snippets of ideas organically emerge, little magical details that will never show up in the rational part of my mind. Mostly because my rational mind is busy, with it’s head down, peering through horn-rimmed glasses at a Very Important clip-board.
And as everyone knows, there’s no place on a Very Important clipboard for anything written in crayon, glitter-glue, or finger-paints, and especially not for anything whispered in the ear by a ‘Muse.’
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I would love to hear about your experience with the concept of the Muse. What is your relationship with your Muse like? Do you have more than one? Do you have any suggestions for a collective noun for Muses?
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I love that image – the air filled with muses, bumping into each, saying “excuse me” and playfully fighting to gain our ear …
I agree with your notion of painting/creating to uncover something that is there, waiting for us. It is how Michelangelo described his process – freeing the forms from the marble. In painting, it is like the muse making her/his presence known through pigment … the mists solidifying for us …
As you can tell from my blog, my daughter is my major muse – and my teacher and the stone that rubs constantly against me, smoothing out my rough edges. Perhaps more accurate would be to say she inspires me to drop the veils that block the muses? And she mentors me in the process of seeing the world with fresh eyes, which I think are the only eyes capable of seeing our muses.
Sounds like a great project … I am looking forward to seeing your muses emerge.
xo Lis
Muses, Guides, beings-that-help-us-when-we-ask. Very wonderful beings, those.
I’ve been working with them in one form or another for a long, long time now, tho’ I’ve learned to speak w/them more directly only recently.
Group noun? Hmmm… will have to think on that one. A “muse” of Muses is rather redundant, but has a certain charm about it nonetheless.
Thank’ee’s for a very kyool post! Just flew in from “The Fluent Self” and very glad I did!
How about a “shower of muses” or, you could go with an Italian flair with “i musi.”
Hi Lis, ‘The mists solidifying for us’ I love that! I know what you say about your daughter mentoring you, I have two little mentors here and everyday they teach me to see the world with fresh eyes. what a privilege to have such little beauties in our lives.
Hi Birdy, Welcome! thank you for coming by. How great that you are learning to speak more directly with your muses. A muse of muses does have a lightness and charm to it–it makes me want to say: a muse of amused muses
Hi Kat, shower is great– I have to say “I musi” is fantastic, the Italian adds mystique, i really like that
I love this painting Dave. The hummingbird made me smile.
And I love that you got me thinking more about the Muse.
I know I have so many different Muses (which I joking called Musii, because I’m a nerd like that).
There is the Muse of Music, the Muse of Painting and the Muse of Writing. But I also have one of cooking and dressing and… and… and…
Sometimes they feel so distinct. Like totally unique personalities. Othertimes, not so much. Like they’re more the same than different.
That’s part of the mystery. And I kind of dig mystery when it comes to my Musii.
I’m really excited to see how this new project you’re doing goes.
Hi Dave. It’s nice to see your art. I particularly like the background textures and colors in this piece, as well as the dress. Beautiful. Thank you for visiting my blog.
Hi Fabeku,
i love ‘musii’ too! and totally agree about the shifting natures of our muses sometimes very distinct, sometimes not.
Hi Claudia,
Thanks so much for visiting, and for your lovely comments.
cheers
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