Do You Have a Style...Yet?

I have been painting in some form or another for 9 years. When I started I was gobsmacked by the number of talented artists in the Okanagan and even more so by how many were so willing to offer advice and provide insight to this newbie who had landed on their doorstep in 2014. I hung out with the cool kids and just wished I could paint like them.

I honed my skills and practiced my art. I listened to many workshop teachers and creative friends talk about having a recognizable style....one that screams your name. I read articles about this and tried on others' styles to see how they fit for me. I experimented with my palette choices and techniques, dove into books about art, collected images of art work I admired, and then, I shrugged off the tension of striving and forcing and doing and consciously chose to let that go and set myself free to be.

Did I somehow arrive? Did my art get better? Well, I did see my work start to shift in a more free direction, but there was no destination in mind so no arrival defined. I pondered the feedback of others about my changing style. If there is change there must have been a starting point and a "now" place - right?

And then, last month, a wonderful couple came into the gallery and walked from one painting to another, drawn like moths to a porch light while commenting on this artist and her style. Me!

So, I spent nine years looking for a way to develop a style and the year I decided I was going to just paint instead, it emerged. A style that is apparently an "Eileen Hopkins". It evolved over much time, resisted when overworked, hid when too much light shone on it, and, somehow, continued to appear. When I finally quit looking forward and trying to shape it and I just started painting from my heart more than my head it just was. Consistently.

To all artists just starting out - young and old; formally trained or just following their heart - the secret is out. Your style is inside you already and so integrated into your heart that it is just waiting for you to get out of the way. It can't be forced. It is never taught to you. It is not found via research or even purposely crafted. It just happens after you surrender and embrace the freedom to just be that creative you have always been.

Although it is others who often notice it first, it is solely and completely yours from beginning to end. You can't lose it. It is ignited from within you and fed by abandonment of all ideas of form or expected outcome. It exists in the moment of now and you can trust it will be there - just like you can trust that your next breath will be there. Revealing it means you are willing to be vulnerable and are more tuned into your own self love than the world of others. What you feel trumps what is said. It's a journey and never an arrival.

My advice - just get out of the way and let go!