Its been an undisputed “knowing” to me, for the longest time, that art works at the quantum level. In fact it always astonishes me how few artists seem to  “know” or accept this about their creations;  indeed, how few people, in general, own this about anything they create – and we are all creators of experience. When I create a painting, which is about as deep and intimate a relationship with a physical object as you can have given what lengths of time, and how many layers,  get to be incorporated into it by the time it is completed, it is quite obvious to me how much of myself has gone into it. By the end of such a sustained birthing process, a painting starts to hold aspects of my energy that remain with it…if I so choose…long afterwards. The point is (as with anything else) to make this intentional, not accidental…

I suppose an analogy could be with a piece of furniture that a master wood turner has produced, or a carving from a piece of marble; we feel that about those objects, as though they hold some residue of the creator, which is part of what makes them desirable. How so much more so in the case of oil paint, which is at first fluid, slick then, even as it gains more substance, open to be sculpted and manipulated, even (in my later works) sanded back to where bits of one layer of pigment are virtually ground into another like the effects of centuries over human history…so, no clear line to distinguish what is of one layer or inherited from another. And yet, by the end (though over longer time than the surface suggests since it can remain malleable under that surface for quite some time…) the oil is “baked” to a hardness that is resilient and stubborn, even prone to cracking like an old layer of strata on the earth. These layers of me  that it contains are the layers of intentionality and consciousness that passed through me as “fluid”, even as I worked on the piece…and, when I first began to paint, I admit I did use my canvases to review and to reconcile parts of myself as I was working on them (which was their magic, as art healed me far quicker than any other process I had previously known). And yet I knew, early on, that to make of the canvas the wholeness that I sought so eagerly of my experience of life, I did better to keep in my higher places, to seek reconciliation far over and above any kind of recompense or retaliation and so, to achieve “light” in art, I headed for the light in myself. There was no thrash music or gnashing of teeth for me as I painted; I healed and healed through my process of many years of meditative painting practice..and so people began to comment that they also felt healed, somehow, when they looked upon my output and this became a “thing” about my art that was recognised as one of its qualities.

Yet all energy is a two-way street; and this is something to be respected, acknowledged, not taken for granted. It played out that, over many exchanges of energy that are the sale of artworks, I came to feel into how where and to whom an artwork “went” would someone impact me. In fact, to this day, I carry within me a very strong sense of where they all flew to, which is now to places around the whole globe. If that sounds bizarre, there have been times when I’ve later sensed that one of them shifted and lo, I would find out that the person who has it had moved from one place to another. In the beginning (as this second-sense about my artworks began to emerge) I became quite precious about wanting to control who they went to, like I was rehoming my own children; which made dealing with galleries an awkwardness that had me prickling with discomfort. I would want to hear stories and details from them (that they often weren’t able to provide…) about how the purchaser had responded when they saw it; how many times had they come in to consider it, were they the over-joyed recipient or simply “buying” a get-out-of-jail christmas gift for their least favourite aunt? In the end, I had to do the inner work to know that all things…even those I can’t contol…have a habit of being just perfect in their own way, though I had no part in directly orchestrating them. In fact, again, stories started to come back to me about perfections that occurred that could have taken no human planning yet they fell into place perfectly without my say so.

So by the end of several years, there were just so many anecdotes of the perfect “homing” of my artworks at “just the right time” to “precisely the right person” that I wouldn’t even know where to start recounting them. One of my favourites, to this day is that, on one occasion, there was a painting that went to “the wrong person” yet it was quickly reconciled. The very moment it happened, I somehow knew from my gut that this was the case and, within half a day, I found this out for sure as I contacted the gallery it had just been delivered to, in order to reclaim it for my other purchaser. The gallery owner almost burst into tears when she heard the news as she had unwrapped it the night before and fallen in love with it on first sight, resolving over-night to buy it for herself (something she seldom did, for all she ran a gallery full of endless temptations). However, I had already made my bargain with the other person, who had by then paid me, so I picked it up and delivered it…only to find that its purchaser, who had been so delighted about this in the beginning, started to feel “off” about her new acquisition as it hung on her wall. So the next time she saw me, she confessed this…which prompted me to tell her about the woman from the gallery…and so she asked if there was any chance she could do a swop for another painting. Now this next part of the story was rare as I seldom paint artworks in twos but, as luck would have it, I had just completed another on a similar theme but with a somewhat different style and she loved it far more than the original. Meanwhile I was able to deliver the first painting to the owner of the gallery, who literally wept for joy at getting it back…and she has told me, many times since over the years, just how much joy it still brings her and all the ways it has helped her through some tough times. Somehow, the crossed wires of those early stages in this transaction taught me more than ever about the quantum relationships we have with art; because what these two people experienced between them, though they never met, was quantum for sure…and so they elected to resolve the difficulty they both felt between them, though they could have shrugged and made do with their situation, as many less sensitive people would.

Because it is certainly”quantum”, this very magical way that art works with all those involved, from the artist to the reseller to the next (or subsequent) “owner” to the places where it travels and all the people who come into contact with it, even in a book centuries later. We feel it when we see cave paintings. We don’t even have to be able to relate with our minds to the person who created the artwork; since this is way way beyond the intellect. Mine now feel like energy anchors dropped into  global locations, like the hooking-points of a vast web that I imagine sparkling with positive energy and it fascinates me, without interfering with it, to watch how those patterns take shape.

Many times, as described in a recent post, I have felt very deeply how “the right artwork goes to the right person” at just the right time. I have heard countless stories of “healing” come out of this; taken to mean just the right inspiration or nudge or note of optimism or whatever it is that person needs right then coming out of the artwork to deliver a quantum message that shifts them onwards in some significant way. These stories are too numerous and personal to recount here but I always relish hearing about them, which is one very major reason why I pulled away from selling art through galleries as I lost this feeling of contact with the people to whom they went.

Only once did I feel a distinct discomfiture with a person who came forward to claim a work of art. I knew too little about them to know (logically) why I felt these disturbances in my gut but they were most certainly there. As luck would have it, they were in search of a particular theme of artwork and suggested several that I had, all of which were, for one reason or another, not available or in right budget to be in the running. So, though I hardly noticed how I did this at the time, I created a new artwork just for them, with just the ingredients they were calling for and yet…I only spotted this much later…I never felt comfortable about this artwork myself; didn’t want it on my website or even to, really, think about it again…like I had to close down my own energetic connection with it. Hopefully they got what they felt they needed from it but I wanted no open doors or two-way street of energetic transference left between us; and that was fine. We could all do with learning how important and available this is, as a choice, in all aspects of our life.

Because to leave an energy portal open is like leaving your back door flung out on its hinges and never knowing who might come in to try and make claims on your inner sanctum. As I’ve said, there can be a marvellous alchemy that takes place between artist and those who feel their art enough to partner with it (since to appreciate art is a partnership of sorts…) but to do this indiscriminately with anyone who demands it is the same as giving away parts of yourself to anyone who should choose to grab. In fact, when the true alchemy takes place, it’s not the case of “taking” but of “collaborating” to the highest good of all parties; and we can always feel when any kind of transaction is based on less than this, from the reactions in our bodies that send us all sorts of misgivings, from the mental to the physical.

Even when that partnership feels as though it is on highest basis, its important to make sure that it is the healing energy of the artwork, which is an intentional thing that you set out to create as its highest purpose, and not aspects of (your)Self that are being claimed in this relationship…since the Self is sacred and should not be up for grabs. Imagine if everyone who owned one of your creations was sapping your energy at some level, grabbing pieces of you to feel better, just helping themselves whenever they believe themselves (having not done their own energy housework) to be in lack thus plugging their perceived gaps with bits of YOU. This could lead to an extremely depleted artist or creator of any kind (and don’t we see that sometimes…people who started out with such high intentions and so much light and yet who are now wrung out and so jaded that it is as though they have been ravaged by life; though its is really that too many people helped themselves to their energy which, at some level, they allowed to happen). It’s essential to set those boundaries…and to do the regular work (through visualisation) to claim back our own energy from wherever this may have been distributed or taken to by other people or attached to our far-flung projects, making sure to also cleanse that energy through a purification filter before reattaching it back to our own field. In this way, we get to take part in the upkeep of our aura; which is the energetic body within which our physical body exists…yes, invisible to most and yet just so very important to our entire state of wellbeing.

And onwards, these energetic connections, where they are pristine and high-intentional, can feel like telephone lines between people; perhaps not used all the time but there when most needed. I often wondered if reproductions of artwork worked the same as originals; after all (logically) how could they when the orignal has all these layers that took time and error and reconciliation to create compared to a repro, which is just a facsimile churned out of a printer in ten seconds flat? And what would be all the repercussions of having energetic relationships with everyone who owns one of my prints, which are available through more print-on-demand resellers than I know about? If so, I would need to do some intentional work about this too; set boundaries, yes, but also make sure that I loaded all of those prints with my highest intentions for healing and positive outcomes, as I do with my originals.

Yet…if I needed to resolve this question once and for all…the answer came to me just the other day. As mentioned in my recent post, I sold a painting to energy intuitive Lee Harris five years ago now and had ordered a repro of this same painting to keep for myself. This reproduction, which was identical to the eyes to the original in every respect, had hung in my bathroom for years but at an angle where I seldom looked at it as this would involve standing in the shower with the curtain not there (not the greatest portion of wall on which to hang anything…though, I concede, I have some of my greatest inspirations in that shower).

The redecoration of my bathroom this year led to me deciding to relocate the reproduction; I thought, most probably, my yoga room would be a good place but I had yet to get as far as putting the hook in the wall. So the picture stood on the floor, at yoga mat height, and I began to find myself looking deeply into it as I lay on my side in the mornings. One day, I did this at some length…really appreciaing what another person might experience from looking into it (something I often forget to do with my own artworks) and, of course, thinking about Lee…who, I had assumed, would have forgotten all about me by now and probably even my painting.

But no, within a matter of days, maybe just under a week, Lee made contact with me out of the blue to say he had been thinking about me, wondering how I was doing and had gone to my FB page to take a look at my recent artworks. He said mine was still on his wall, that he still loves it…and, in return, I received the very confidence boost to keep painting that I was in desperate need of (as shared in that previous post). A month or less after that, Lee’s house was under threat from the fires that have tiraded across California and I was able to use the linkage I now feel more strongly than ever to send as much healing energy and positivity across its quantum portal in his direction and for anyone else in that locale. It felt significant and not a little bit profound to me to have my painting there in the midst of such upheaval, offering all I know about holding a steadier space, something that would have been impossible if I had not, in the first place, put my art out into the world; a realisation that motivates me as an artist. Its seems, the reciprocation airways that were opened up when he and I first exchanged over the purchase of that painting were still there, realised in perfect timing!

This is no magical power, no unique gift that I have; its something that is there for all of us, everyday…whether “artist” or no since it underpins all of our creations, whether a “thing” or even a phrase we construct before saying it out loud to another, or an intention we have that we set as a thought…energy is everywhere; art just helps us to make it more manifest. When this kind of “magic” happens around art we tend to shrug or make it sound trivial, like its part-and-parcel of the “expected weirdness” we allow around art yet we deny it in most other aspects of life. Yet owning up to this quantum layer of interaction is to become more powerful, by far, in our interactions; not to mention more intentional, more necessarily mindful in order to steer which way we direct what we manifest (we all have a vested interest in that). When we own up to this layer of experience, we also notice how we give our energy away or leak it like a sieve, how we end up feeling just so tired and depleted without knowing why (and so we can start to do the energetic repair work to remedy this)…so many areas of life we can work on through intention and thus use to create a better experience, both for ourselves and all others with whom we engage. Some of the people who purchase my art and who experience these bizarre, inexplicable positives that come out of it become new believers in the uncanny layers of life; allowing chinks of light into their otherwise logical, left-brain dominated experiences that previously demanded explanations you can touch. Well, you can touch this or, rather, these experience can touch your life in some undeniably profound ways…if you let them.. which is the best reason to continue creating art that I know; it touches people’s lives in some powerfully positive, if not always quantifiable, ways that defy linearity, time, distance or the need for well-orchestrated logistics. As, primarily, a worker in the medium of light, I could ask for no more!