Intent of the work

Sea Princess Karin Mackay 2005

I was talking to a friend the other day and asked her about the way she approached her art. She told me that it depended upon her intention at the time of doing the art piece. She recently made a painting for the Anncestral Connections Exhibition that was held as part of the EarthSpirit Festival 2009. As her intention was to create something about her anncestors she told me that it was necessary for her to spend some time beforehand to connect with the anncestral energies. What she said was that if she was just doing a sketch or a drawing she wouldn't have thought to connect with these spiritual energies of the anncestors and those works would not have as much meaning for her. But because there was the "connection" then this artwork was very special to her.

I would like to add to this that I think as well as intent there needs to be a change in "state". What I mean by this state is that your mind, body and emotions merge to become fused or focused in a super connected state where you are in "the zone". In this zone you may experience total absorbtion in what you are doing. it can feel like a dream state but you are very aware and alert to what you are doing. This may be called hyper-reality. It is still real but your senses may seem incredibly integrate and ready to take in insights or imaginings. everything seems clear and makes perfect sense. You feel like you will remember this because it is so clear but often when you are roused from this state you can only glimpse the initial meaning.

My initial drawing of the sea princess oil painting ,at the beginning of this entry, was created in a session at The Women's Room in about 40 minutes. This was after meditation and discussion with a group of other women. I can't now recall what it was initially in response to but this seems inconsequetial now. And that is exactly my point. There is sometimes something different at play besides intent. Maybe having the intent is one way to create an artwork and in that process connect with the divine. In my case I had no concious intent to connect with anything inparticular. My intent was purely in response to an exercise. I do recall it now. We had to paint our utopia. What I have noticed after a few years of opening up to an expressive way of painting is that often it is not clear what you have really painted, created, drawn, danced or performed until later. Sometimes your in your hyper real state you create with one kind of intention but it may not be until you are in an ordinary state that you can later make sense of what you have really created, often it's true beatuy or menaing is astounding.

As an example the initial pastel drawing of the water and headland was done with the intention of drawing our utopia. My intention was to create a sea, wild and free, a cottage on the hill overlooking a beautifil headland with lush vegetation and a mountain stream rolling down the hilside. Weeks later after looking at the painting every afternoon while tutoring schoolkids my husband pointed out that he could see a mermaid in the bottom left hand corner. Once it was pointed out to me I could not miss it and was amazed at how this had happened. It became more interesting the more I looked at the painting as I began to see another women in the green of the grass. Further still at the time we were looking to buy an investment property by the sea as this had been our "intention" as soon as we had moved back from the country to the Blue Mountains. Either this had remained in my psyche as we were looking or it was presience. About a year later we "discovered" a wonderful place that incredibly looked just like my earlier painting, even though I had not seen it before I had painted it.

I have found through painting this way, by having an intention but then allowing the divine energy forces to manifest through your artwork indeed brings wonderful gifts.

Here is the place that we "discovered" You can't see it in the photo but there is a row of houses that face the beach this way. When you stand on the beach and lok back it is like the view of my painting. Also many years after we had bought a little house (not on the headland) we noticed a small cottage on the headland that was really run down but really cute. In the last twelve months it has been bought renovated and painted a purlply pink just like the one in my paintings. How about that. Anf guess what. It is a holiday reantal and I am going to stay in it in December. you neve know maybe one day I will own my utopia!.

Ancient Moon

The ancient practice of honouring the moon is still open to us now as we look to nature to guide and inspire us. The female ancestors play in the rocky shore. This scene depicts the cycles of life in the aspects of maiden, mother, crone beneath the larger cycle of the moon and how this relates to our own sexual energy. This was inspired by back beach Woolgoolga. I have seen many mermaids and Goddesses here frolicking in the rocks. This one has lost her tail and has become a mature earthy woman.