https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdBo1IrNskp/?stkn=MWthcm9meTVmZTQyag==

Great meeting. It got me thinking… My injury in creativity and in being seen I see as a relational injury. Worthiness injury. I have overstepped boundaries in the past and in an effort to reduce harm, became very careful, vigilant and small. And it was also a teaching from formative relationships, an intelligent response to protecting myself in younger years. But it became so constricting. It became a vice so tight I stopped making, connecting. And having to abandon my voice, right to mistakes, or simply a different opinion, became a habit. So I am actively now searching for different ways to unwrap it, how to excavate intentions, and beliefs. That happens in this group, which I love. The thing I’ve done mostly to examine my limiting beliefs around care and responsibility, was shame work. That work would take me straight to what was supporting it. What I uncovered was—I am too much. To be a good person I need to be humble. I am responsible for others feelings. To bridge that belief to have more nuance and compassion I thought… I am inherently worthy. I can speak and take up space. I am learning and growing. I will do the repair when there is a rupture. I am not responsible for others feelings. It is ok if this takes me time while I am learning safety in being seen, with my strength and imperfections. I bring my own ingredients to the world. It is a gradual process, but is changing how I show up and make things and share things too.

I visited an exhibition in London on Monday. I’d just had a five day shutdown, got up Monday morning, boarded the train with all my painting gear and made my way there. It was a long day! And took another two to recover. I wrote this a few days later with my remaining impressions, after heavy squats over coffee in a grim little seaside cafe, listening to Cradle of Filth on full volume. https://ethanfoxpaints.substack.com/p/robert-dukes-at-bernard-jacobsen?r=2lv6s&utm_medium=ios

Funny enough after going on about technique in the comments of Ethan's post.... my work has been included in this atelier techniques book! It's nice to have three very different paintings included, I feel seen and appreciated for the artist I am 🥰

For me, teaching a three day live workshop is like having all the lights on in the house, and the neighbors' houses too. That energy bill is high. It's a big responsibility to be present and feeling and connected...plus solving in my mind every problem in all of the paintings at once and verbalizing the solutions at different levels of skill and understanding for each student. Seeing/feeling the tension in their emotions when they reach the gap between their current knowledge and what I'm offering. And then there's the - being so seen, especially in my personal studio space. But I love it. I love the opportunity to create solutions on the spot for whatever comes up. To see breakthroughs and know that I'm helping. To see them surprise me with their own brilliant solutions. To add nuance to my ever growing definition of what "art" and "artist" can be. When I was younger I'm not sure how 'in my body' I ever was. When you aren't in your body, feeling your experiences you don't get tired or sick. Learning to be present in all the complexity, feeling things in real time has meant I've had to slow down, rest, adjust my methods of teaching and taking care of myself. It sometimes looks like diminished capacity but it's not. It's like caring for a rich, expansive, complex property. It's seeing what's going on in the now. It's being present in that richness and then processing it. Not reaction, but instead creation. How did I teach before this capacity? I created strict systems that we followed, I didn't allow for dealing with inner complexity or allow myself to be seen in my humanness. More protective armor built out of the difference between teacher and student. My perception of students was more one dimensional. I had something they wanted, I gave it in a structured way that filled the whole time, leaving less room for the individual. I pushed myself hard to impress and used that personal accomplishment as a safety buffer. I'm not saying I wasn't a good teacher, or that I didn't care... I'm sure the essential parts of me were there in some form. But self protection was limiting my education as a person and a teacher. To evolve I had to get more vulnerable.