Safe Companions

In The Artist’s Way Julia Cameron says, “Creativity flourishes when we have a sense of safety and self-acceptance. Your artist, like a small child, is happiest when feeling a sense of security. As our artist’s protective parent, we must learn to place our artist with safe companions.”

Caught in the act of creating

I know of no safer companion on my artistic journey than my husband, Sean Richardson. He believed in me, and my art, long before I did. I began taking painting classes again early in our relationship. I had only been living in his apartment a few months when I came home one day to find he had pulled an old kitchen table out of storage. While I was at work, he rearranged the spare bedroom we shared as a home office so the table would fit in a corner, creating my first dedicated art space.

Years later, when I began showing and selling my paintings, Sean continued to be my safe companion. He helped me hang my first solo art show, hammering nails and leveling picture frames. When I painted a piano for the city of Denver he was not only my driver, he helped me schlep my supplies – including heavy cans of paint – and fetched me lunch. And throughout this journey, it is my husband Sean who has documented my progress and my successes. He is the official photographer of Marcella Nordbeck, Inc.

On our honeymoon in Breckenridge

His support doesn’t stop there. Sean, who I affectionately call my DJ, makes me mix CDs and downloads music onto my iPod. He knows better than anyone that music is an integral part of my creative process. When I’m on deadline to finish new work for an upcoming show, it is Sean who reminds me to eat and to sleep when I’m, “living in my right hemisphere,” as I call it, and I’ve lost all sense of time. 

Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like An Artist, says, “Who you marry is the most important decision you’ll ever make. Relationships are hard enough, but it takes a real champion of a person to be married to someone who’s obsessed with a creative pursuit.”

My husband is certainly my champion. There is no doubt in my mind that I am the woman, and the artist, I am today because of his unconditional love and belief in me. Whether I sell a painting, or I don’t get accepted into a juried art show, his advice is always the same, “You’re doin’ it Baby! Just keep doin’ it!”

With my safe companion by my side, I will keep “doin’ it” as I live The Artist’s Way.

The Artist's Way - Week Six

"Melting into Blue" 2010

Acrylic & Mixed Media on Wood, 15x30"

Eureka! I’m painting again! Six weeks into The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron’s 12-week course for “discovering and recovering your creative self,” and I’m painting! I developed a sketch and test boards for the commissioned piece I’m working on, made progress on my painting for the HOPE Ball auction, finished a painting titled, “Melting into Blue,” the first from a new series I started in November, and decided I’m going to submit a piece into the next juried art show at Mile Hi Church.

This productivity has come at a cost. To make time to paint around my full-time day job I slaked off writing my three daily pages (only writing three out seven mornings), I didn’t do the suggested exercises, and I didn’t even schedule a solo artist date with myself – my favorite aspect of The Artist’s Way. As I read chapter six on, “Recovering a Sense of Abundance,” it seems it is not financial abundance I struggle with, but rather the abundance of time, or my perception of a lack of time. Or worse, my fear that time might be running out.

Perhaps it is my pending biopsy this coming Tuesday that has shifted my perception and use of time. Whatever it is, this past week I had an insatiable hunger to tune out the world and just paint, so that’s what I did. As I count down the days until I take a test that will tell me if abnormal cells are, dare I say the word - cancer – I’ve spent my “free” time doing the one thing that brings me more joy than anything else in my life: painting.

Telling my parnter not take my picture while I paint.

Photo courtesy of Sean Richardson

When I wasn’t sequestered in my home office/art studio painting – or viewing a home screening of the documentary Who Does She Think She Is? at “Cinema Night”, a monthly event I co-host with artist Anita Larson and writer Janet Roots – I spent every waking moment (as well as every sleeping, napping, spooning moment) with my beloved. Instead of going out, both Friday and Saturday night we stayed in, made dinner together, and watched movies. And from the moment we woke up on Sunday morning until I sat down in the evening to write this blog, we spent every minute of the day together. Whether unloading and loading the dishwasher, folding laundry, grocery shopping, or preparing meals, we haven’t left each other’s side.

My favorite spot to sit in the kitchen

after juicing while dinner cooks.

Photo courtesy of Sean Richardson

It’s entirely possible the biopsy will come back benign and no further medical intervention need be taken. But it seems to me that my partner and I are both aware, even if we choose not to speak the words out loud, that these are precious moments we’re spending together. And we best not take them for granted.

Check in with me next week as I embark on chapter seven of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and “Recover a Sense of Connection.”