Expansion!

It is too often that I worry about things like, “Why do I spend my days doing something I don’t fully enjoy?”  “What can I do to expand my horizons?”  “How will I do it?”  I don’t know about you, but these questions can sometimes weigh me down and often make me wonder if I have settled for something.  I find that most of us, are spending our daily routines, doing a job that might not bring us the most satisfaction.  I mean that utterly wonderful feeling of satisfaction that when you go home your heart is full and you feel at ease from what you have experienced that day.

In my day job, I work with numbers, big numbers.  I don’t like them much, and to say the least, I am not very comfortable with them at all.  They make me nervous.  There is always a definitive answer, you don’t have any freedom to ponder that 1+1 might = 3.  or 10.  or what happens if I mix 1 and 2 and 4 and squish in an 8?  Throw in a blowtorch and what will I get?   Nothing. 1+1=2 and that’s that.

I have recently realized, however, that expanding myself, my horizons, is seemingly coming in the form of art, and I am loving every bit of it.  I recently attended an all day workshop, doing just that.  Expanding my horizons through concepts, education, conversation, and inspiration.

In art, you can mix two different types of paint and know or not know what will happen.  You can experiment endlessly with mediums, pastes, grounds, backgrounds, paints, liquid ink, found objects, gels…so many things.  You can repeat the same process and add in a different variable and get a totally different result.  So here I am, expanding.

Despite that pesky day job, I appreciate that this expansion is happening.