The quote on this journal page says:
if from time to time you color an image drawn by someone else,
you’ll find yourself
in uncharted territory
making decision you wouldn’t encounter if
the image were your own
with your own preconceived idea
of color placement.
The quote comes from a response to my Coloring Book pages by Barbara Hagerty.
(Note: if you watch the video below, you’ll see this picture before it was finished)
I asked her permission to use it for my Wylde Women Quotes because it speaks to how we all mostly unconsciously stick to our safe waters, and how something as simple as coloring someone else’s art can change all that.
In art and in business I am always looking for the edges of whatever box I’m currently in. Hard to find because when you’re swimming in a pond it seems that there is nothing else. You have to come out of the warm water into the cold air, learn you can still breathe in the different atmosphere, begin to imagine other worlds.
Easier said than done, and yet one of the most important things we can do for ourselves: it helps us grow.
How do you know you’re in a pond? You’re comfortable! You have an illusion of being in control (trust me: there is no such thing as being in control. So don’t kid yourself). Everything you do, you do well. You make no mistakes.
If you aren’t growing, you’re dieing.
So take a piece of paper and draw a map to Possibility, a great little town just beyond the pond’s edge. To get there, all you have to do is grow legs, learn to breathe air, and face your fears of imperfection – perhaps even failure – and learn to live with a bit of chaos, which is what the Universe came out of and continue to grow from. What are we if not stardust? Embrace your true nature!
See you there!
Here’s my latest chaos. I tried hard to embed the video, but it just refused to happen, so you’re just going to have to click over to see it!
Wylde Women’s Wisdom:
What am I doing? does it resonate with who I am? Who am I? Am I listening to my intuition and following my heart or am I listening to old tapes and “shoulds” that I have yet to let go? Am I living in integrity with my beliefs? What are my beliefs? How does all of this manifest in the world? What is being born? How does that change all of this? Tammy Vitale
4 Comments
[…] UnCharted Territory […]
Baye – totally agree, except I’ve been working for myself for so long I don’t know that I could go “color someone else’s job” anymore…hopefully I won’t ever have to – since I’m so outside the coloring lines of everyone else and they know it!
This sorta applies to jobs as well. When you work for someone else they create a picture of what they expect, but you are the one who really has to apply the color, bring it to life. I tend to be very careful to stay in the lines and not get too bold with colors in my job. In truth, though, the times when I am most appreciated and, more importantly, do the most good are the times when I boldly venture outside the lines.
Great thought-provoking quote!
Tammy, you are such an inspiration, and you must take some credit for this quote. If I had not had your pages to color, who knows what I would have said, if anything at all? It was in response to coloring your beautiful images that thoughts about what I had learned to do came rolling back to me, and I remembered how valuable it is to
make art in uncharted waters. Coloring your images is like a dialogue. They speak to me, and I speak back with color. So thank you! XOXO