The Direction of Intention

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It is 1989 and I am showing Jim my paintings for the first time. I am shy about sharing my work because Jim is a great and accomplished artist. I admire him and am still in the phase of believing myself a fraud. I’d tried to discourage this moment but he insisted. Now, I pull out my paintings one-by-one and quietly reveal them –and myself.

He is kind and asks questions about the story behind each painting. He asks about process and impulse. We talk about who influences my work, painters and writers that I admire. Finally, as I am carefully returning the paintings to storage, he asks a question that puzzles me and stops me cold. “What are the spheres about?”

“Spheres? What do you mean?”

He smiled and said, “I thought as much. In each of your paintings, every single one, there are three spheres. You have no idea, do you?”

I began pulling the paintings, one-by-one, out of storage. Now I am seeing my paintings for the first time. It is just as he said: in each of my paintings are three distinct spheres. Each spheres exists as the point of a triangle. The paintings are stacked all around me. Jim laughs long and hard at the look of utter disbelief on my face. I’d painted them and I’d never seen them before!

He said, “You’re not nearly the fraud that you think you are.” I’m embarrassed. In addition to being confused and disoriented by the spheres, he has seen through my mask and I feel naked, exposed. He asked, “Why is it that an artist is the last to know that he or she is an artist?” He looked at me and said, “You’ll begin to see the spheres that you paint when you learn to see yourself for what you truly are. See yourself as you are, not as what you assume others want you to be.”

Filed under: Art, Awakening, Truly Powerful People |