International Soul Art Day Gallery

What Inspired you to do a Soul Art journey?

I join International Soul Art Day each year because I am a fully certified Soul Art guide, from body mapping to shaman.

How would you describe your creative process?

Surprising.
I had upfront some idea of what I wanted to do. Ten years ago, everything in my life felt so dark and I was so frustrated and angry about what had happened the years before and what was going on then, that all I wanted to do then was paint wildly with black paint and that is what I then started to do. That was the moment my inner artist got unleashed. Two years later I joined the Soul Art Certification. My idea was to look back and to look forward by starting with a canvas piece that I had created 10 years ago (the one I am holding here in my profile picture), putting that one in the centre and then around it, 8 empty canvas pieces, starting from the centre, creating art on those empty pieces. In preparation I had painted those 8 empty pieces black, also to make the connection with ten years ago when everything felt black. Black is for me also the symbol of Mystery-Land, the unknown, the new to be discovered. What I expected was to create one big painting of 9 smaller canvas pieces. Yet what along the journey happened was that I started to screw the pieces together and a box emerged.

Two days later, I was looking at my black box and out of the blue I got the idea to put a bundle of big sticks in it. The bundle of sticks, I had already created a while ago. Also for a while, I have been looking around to find something to put the bundle of sticks in, so they can stand on their own. Yet I was not able to find it. So I made an opening, put them in and to my surprise and delight, IT WORKED. The container to hold the sticks has created itself.

So overall my creative process was surprising and guiding itself.

Besides that, at the moment, I am looking back on the last 14 years of my life, by daily writing (part of my shamanic trauma transformation). Now, after I have completed my writing of the day, I throw the pages in my black alchemy box.

What insight did you receive from your Soul Art?

A couple of things, first of all, trust the creative process, even when the process is going in different directions than expected. Then second, after I had put my bundle of sticks in the box, I saw from all that pain and black of the past, something new is getting created out of it. This morning when I was looking at it again, I also saw, as a metaphor, myself getting out of the box, getting out of hiding, and stepping out of my own shadow. The bundle of sticks (or branches) being able to stand on their own now, also a symbol for me, being able to stand on my own feet.

What is the most important thing you would like to share about your Soul Art experience?

The journey this year, was challenging, to be present in the Facebook group, do my sharing. I see then the work of others, how elaborate and rich their processes are. Their colourful and beautiful art, and there I am with black canvas pieces and a painting from ten years ago. My art can sometimes look a bit simple or a bit rough or ugly. It can give me the feeling of being “not good enough”, “not interesting enough”, “holding no value” or “who cares what I do. Then I tend to compensate and try to make mine also colourful and beautiful. To be honest, somewhere in the process, I did create something like that which was a lot of work and cost a lot of energy and actually, I did not really like it. This pain part, I made it part of the overall creative process and shared some of it in the Facebook group. Going through this process made me aware of, despite what someone else is doing or someone else might think of it, putting upfront what I want to share, what is important to me now. To be more open, honest, real, simply how it is. True face, true power, true emotions and eventually true money.