True North

Jannelle Loewen is one of Cole Gallery’s award-winning artists. In this essay, she shares with us her journey to finding her True North.

True North is represented on maps and globes by the meridians of longitude which converge at the North Pole. This means that true north is according to the earth’s axis, not magnetic north. A compass will guide you to magnetic north, a point in the arctic regions of Canada that continually shifts location based on the activity of the earth’s magnetic fields.

Fluid iron in the planet’s core acts like a huge magnet, creating a relatively weak magnetic field. Fascinating when you think about it, the magnetic core shifting like a forever ocean below all that ice and snow.

In days before GPS technology, sailors and travelers and ancients relied on the stars, moon, and sun, along with the help of compasses the Chinese invented in the first century. They learned to fix on a lodestar, or a star that shows the way. In the northern hemisphere, the North Star, or Polaris is the lodestar that guides you true north. The southern hemisphere doesn’t have a star comparable to Polaris, but the Southern Cross constellation provides a good approximation of where south lies.

So how does this relate to the artist’s life?  While there is a lot of advice geared at artists, it seems to me that artists sometimes need to be steered toward their inner selves. Your true north is your internal compass that guides and helps you find your way around this spinning planet. Your true north also is a guiding principal; revealing your most cherished values, passions, and motivations. With your true north in mind, you’re focused, enlarged, and not blown off course.

For many of us, painting is linked to our true north, and is also our haven, our shelter in the world.  Doing art means we’ve found our way home, and it offers solace, inspiration, and companionship. Now, of course, all these are found in our relationships and other interests, but while crafting art, our meaning for being is most apparent. For me painting provides ballast and solace. When I’m not doing art, I’m off kilter, restless, and sometimes resentful of the tasks that steal time from art making.

My Epiphany

I want to tell you a little story about an epiphany that I had some years back that has been particularly meaningful, because I hope you can connect it to your art and your own true north. I realized I was the fastest runner (and the most monkey-like while climbing monkey bars and trees) at school when I was about six and from that moment on, my days were spent outdoors, climbing and racing about, whenever possible. I’d come home after school running, bike riding, tree climbing (sometimes swaying at the tree top in high winds) As I felt the bliss of streaming hair blowing back in the wind I dreamed of Olympic wins, arms raised in happy triumph to the roar of viewing crowds.  And as the sun set, the sky bruised and lonely, I’d practice a twirl around the clothesline bar.

Later, at bedtime, I’d imagine hitting home runs and winning races on stilts.  Sometimes I would steal out into the night to pedal my bike down the empty street, balanced with arms outstretched, at one with the breeze and the gem-filled sky.  And I got nowhere.  I knew how to live in the moment but didn’t have a clue how to fit that into society, how to plan for a whole life of work and the professionalism that would give me meaning.

In reality we were poor and I was the unfocused, happy-go-lucky, third of three siblings.  There wasn’t even anything left for me to pray about at our mandatory morning devotions.  I had no heroines, identified with no one, yet hoping and yearning for sophisticated discussion and realization of subtle nuances.  I drew pictures, colored in notebooks and studied values of blue and purple on mountains.  I thrived in a secret fort surrounded by a hundred dappled greens trailing over the walls and down railings.  My heart thrilled at seeing stripes of sunlight on colored stones.  I wanted a life brimming with meaning.

As the years piled up, my confidence in some of my abilities thinned, and it all began with those girlish aspirations poorly cultivated and not consciously realized. Then years later, I was remembering the bruised sky at dusk, feeling the chill seep into my bones, my toes growing numb. And I wanted a teacher or anyone to encourage me.  How can anyone realize artistic expression, with all that it means?  No wonder my dreams were never realized.

But I had those who encouraged me to draw, to paint, to be a part of an artistic community.  There were a few who saw a glimmer in me that I didn’t believe in even though I loved art from the first. Life is much different for me now, but not only because I’m older. I’ve reframed my sense of self; have written two illustrated books, joined exclusive art communities, have been accepted into local, regional and international juried art shows, am represented by two wonderful galleries and am teaching other talented artists.  I have faith in my abilities realizing that they came not only from interest and talent but also from persistence and stamina. And I’m always learning.

In the next weeks, as you contemplate your resolution to lose a few pounds or other goals for 2012, I encourage you to take time and reflect on your true north. Poke around within. What do you stand for? What scares you? What inspires you?  What sort of unfinished business is buried within? That will bring meaning to your days? How will you connect to yourself and the world?

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