6 Reasons that You MUST Find Your Inner Artist!

6 days until I turn 40.

I became an ARTIST 73 days ago.  Last night I painted my 100^th painting.  I have a fanpage, www.facebook.com/heartartbydiane and I have my paintings for sale at local shops.  I have been commissioned to paint 3 different paintings for friends and connections.   I have been a busy girl, but I am having the best time.  I have no idea what I am doing.  I have never taken a class.  I am allowing myself to be completely FREE to explore and do whatever feels right.  It has been nothing short of a miracle in my life.  I can feel God moving me, shifting me, changing me.   I had no clue that I could paint, which is the best part of all.

Here are 6 reasons why you MUST find your own inner artist:

 

 

1. Being an ARTIST give you full reign to be quirky and eccentric.  This is something that I think we all are anyway, but we are normally only doing this in the privacy of our own home and with the ones that have promised to never leave us or are related to us.  Being quirky is fun.  For me, it means walking around town with paint on my shorts and feeling totally fine about it.
2. Being an ARTIST gives you a crazy feeling of freedom.  I am free to try new paper, different colors, a variety of brushes.   I have no rules.  I have painted in the middle of the night, early morning, during my lunch hour.  I paint in my kitchen (what I have lovingly named the Heart Art Studio) so I can paint as needed.
3. Being an ARTIST gives you permission to be spontaneous and a tad bit flighty.  Before I became an artist, I had an image of artists in my mind.  I had “artists” labeled as “flighty” and just knew that they “marched to their own drummer”.  Well that is true.  But I have seen many non-artists that do that too.   For me, being an artist gives me permission to let go of some of my self-imposed strict standards and go with the flow.  This is not a normal place for me to be, as a CEO of a company, and strong Type A woman.  It is good for me.
4. Being an ARTIST gives your passionate feelings and deep emotions a place to show up in the world.  We all have so much junk we hold in, bottle up, never share.  It could be love, or anger, or frustration, or joy.   Painting has giving me a new place to share my feelings.
5. Being an ARTIST provides your creative right brain the ability to open up new territory.   It truly feels like my brain is expanding over these last few weeks and months.  I bet it is.  I know my ability to see colors is different than it used to be.  I can see images and  I then want to re-create them in my own way.
6. Being an ARTIST gives you the chance to be wild enough to really chase your drams….to mix colors on a page, to try painting with a fork, and other insanity.  I love being a WILD woman…..in fact, I have always been a WILD woman, but now I  have a place that it fits rights in.

 

I am so happy to call myself an Artist.

Diane Cunningham is the Founder and President of the National Association of Christian Women Entrepreneurs. She is a “business therapist”, plane crash survivor, author, consultant, speaker, marathon runner, and fun friend. Find out more about NACWE and why 165 women joined in the first year at www.NACWE.org.

Connect with Diane at www.facebook.com/DianeCunningham for fun updates, silly videos, and lively conversation.