I've Got to Try...

No picture this time. Just listen. So, I really wanted to be an artist, though I think as early as 8, I thought "I can't be an artist; they don't make any money." So I searched and searched to figure out what I wanted to be and earn money.

I grew up, I did customer service, worked in retail store stock rooms, sold dishes, insurance and car care products. I took other customer service positions with other companies and begin to work with "computers." Data entry jobs. Enter this data and "something happens." But I had to try.

Started making a little more money, which was necessary because I had a family and bills and stuff. Worked with "computers" a little more and thought of ways work could go smoother if we had _____ and _____. Worked with computers more and people less; computers seem good. I've got to try this.

Every department or company I moved to, someone wanted to talk - I mean the baring one's soul type of talk. I'm good at this; I've got to try...

Somewhere along the way, I came full circle. Art: painting, drawing, oil painting, acrylics, watercolor, pastel and charcoal. I've got to try.

I've thrown in 'this' and 'that' along the way, including preaching, teaching and scrubbing toilets, but when it comes right down to it, I've got to try...

You hear me, you understand. This isn't about revealing a great secret or having answers for it all. This is about living and trying. Sometimes I fail at stuff, other times I succeed, but like you and nearly every person on the planet, I've got to try. Check out my website to see what I mean: www.eddiehudson3.com

A Break in the Clay - Filtered Divinity

(In process) There's more light inside...if we could take a look inside, behind all the confusion, the rattle of "THE ECONOMY," and what-if's, there is a source of incredible energy! Not like plugging into a the electric company energy, where you are the master, but the type that is intelligent, compassionate, creative. To a greater extent, we're a reflection, a scratched, cracked and smeared mirror of it.
A light, an energy so powerful, it's purpose defies our shadowy logic. Yet he chooses to live in us, behind our excuses, our expressions of loves, likes and dislikes. He makes choices as well as we do, choosing to direct our path so subtly, similar to the way water changes the shape and texture of a rock.

What would happen if that light and "us" decided to enjoy one another? What would happen if we allowed ourselves to reflect, to be changed by the light within?

This filter is breaking, the light is coming through...

By the way, I'm working on a poem, A Kiss, to be published at www.eddiehudson3.com. Look for it, next Monday.

We have this treasure (Filtered Divinity)

Amazing, it is, that life altering truth comes from the places it does. Our tendency is to assume light, or revelation only comes by way of those who spend long hours, head bowed in contemplation or in books. But truth, spiritual knowledge doesn't have to have a "willing body;" all it takes is a mind, a heart, and a soul, and God's infinite wisdom will find you!

In the above piece, you will note the bands of earth tones, particularly browns, clay and oranges, primarily below. That's us. But wait, what's this breaking through the bottom? Seems like light is interrupting the thick dark tones. Yeah, well that happens around us and to us more often than we know.

It is said that artist transmit the will of the creator. Whether it's singing, writing, acting, or rendering in paint or marble, to the world, we convey 'messages.' But have you ever watched a child at play? Especially children who play with great effort? If you've ever seen one who laughed, twirled, jumped and ran, then you've also noted that they "huff and puff" and sweat like us crotchety adults :) But they are expressing joy without separating play from work. They are creating joy with great effort - rather than waiting to be entertained. God, through them, expresses his joy - for joy's sake.

We have a treasure hidden in are "earthen vessels..."

Filtered Divinity

Filtered Divinity - in progress

A new series – and as I write, awareness that like trying to control play and fun, I better allow Divine to be master! Writing and rendering, I play the prophet, the medium, the channel by which God declares to his loved one(s) his big heart.

Looking at a fellow artist’s photos, and thinking of her artist-style unique, caricature-like, heads almost like balloon sculpture, I thought how artist really have to speak the language of their body and tongue. Meaning, while we are the filter for God, who remains master even in our independence, his message is communicated through all aspects of us. Yes, if he desires, he could allow me to speak in the tongue of a remote people and ensure they clearly understand what he wants them to. But more often than not, he allows the words and images to come through ‘me.’ Born in Chicago, raised on the West side, loving Jazz music as well as Soul (that’s what we called it long time ago), and poetry, Greek mythology, reading Bible stories and girls. I don’t stop being ‘me’ to communicate – paint a pretty or ugly picture – but because I am who I am, I speak as he directs.

Every artist, whether they are visually, verbally or kinetically enabled, who feels the depths of the connection to God, understands that sometimes we are just as affected by the message we’re trying to communicate. We aren’t off the hook after we say, show or sing it, it reflects back on us, like a well lit room. The message is big, you all and rather than contain it, control or bend it, it’s best that we let it flow. Listen, Perceive, Respond friends!

FOR SALE - ART!!!

I've been waiting, patiently waiting and so have you! Well it's official; I now have a page of Oil paintings available for sale! Check out my website: www.eddiehudson3.com!

Practicing Like TRANE...Getting it right

Not perfect, but "right." There is a difference you know. Perfect has that sense that nothing else remains, that 'it' has evolved to it's highest level of powerful output. Well, when it comes to the creative process, I remain in a evolutionary process. There's a new barrier, a new wall and a new _____ causing friction.

I read a biography about John Coltrane a few years back, written by Ashley Kahn (A Love Supreme/The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album). In it, the author chronicled John's period of true initiation, or another way to put it, his period of self-discovery. He says John would practice for hours in his apartment - probably aggravating the heck out of neighbors, though he was one of the world's best saxophonist! He probably drove his wife crazy as well.

But here's a point for all of us: something so right, so incredible that it redefines a genre, or causes upward movement in culture, that's a worthwhile goal to store in the back of your conscious. To place it as a point of reference in front of you is to keep 'ego'  too wrapped up in the work and the work falls short of the goal. To completely ignore that higher goal is also the death of the Supreme. But to allow it to be an irritant, a itching that can't be scratched, or a gentle tap on the shoulder, that's how we make a contribution of Love.

Practice exceeds sitting at the instrument with a stack of liner notes replete with 'new ideas.' It exceeds mulling over fresh tubes of paint, imagining the blend of a Permanent Alizarin Crimson with a French Ultramarine. But it includes doing dishes, laundry, running errands for the family. It includes sleepless nights, early mornings and distress over the lawlessness of the land. Practice is about inscribing one's creative mark on the world where we're found. Practice is calling out of the unknown, the dark conscious a message that points to the light of the divine. Yeah, I think I'll practice it like Trane.

I’ll say It (paint it, draw, put it in rhyme) – His Words

Been at this for a while now, and whether it’s put in electronic form, scribbled in spiral bound pages, sketch, spread in bright hues, I must say it. I have to express it.

I have often said it – mistakenly – to see what the audience will say, but when I say it because it’s in me, when I treat it as nectar and salve for the world, I am at my best. When I say it – express light – from the depths of my heart, it is the power of shaping, creating, and formation.

There are times when I get stuck, but that mental state is only control, trying to determine the reaction. I can’t determine the reaction; I can only deliver what is here, inside me.

This is me; this is my expression. Eddiehudson3, bringing the words and images that my heart ponders. In person, I am quiet, reserved, almost aloof, but in my images, the words written, I am a prolific, wealth of truth and light.