07 Sep Art Heals – How One Painter Moves “Towards Joy”

Art heals. I know this first hand. You see, before I ever started making luxury pillows I got sick. Although I still have chronic health conditions that go unseen, but often limit me, I’m extremely grateful to be much better. The reasons are many. Having a fantastic husband and supportive friends and family are at the top of the list. But one primary reason I am better is because I discovered my passion for creating pillows. And through that discovery of “my art”, it literally helped me heal.  (You can read about it HERE.)

I’ve often shared artists and their artwork with you here on our blog, especially in the last two years during the WEST Austin Studio Tour. Today I want to talk more specifically about how art heals, by featuring my dear friend, artist Linda Stabinski.

Linda has a show opening TODAY, Friday September 7th, from 5 – 9 p.m. (EDT) and running through September 29th that you should definitely attend if you live near Lancaster, PA.

Titled “Towards Joy”, at the LSJ Studios, 110 W. King St., Suite 101, Lancaster, PA, Linda’s exhibit runs through September 29th and features her emerging work about finding her joy through the grief of losing her mother at age 48 when Linda was only 9 years old.

I first met Linda in 2016 through an online art career course I took, and to this day, we are both part of a group of women artists who meet monthly online to help us stay focused and accountable to our art. Because of this group, I personally have spent much more time in my studio creating new work and applying to art exhibitions over the past two years. I also had the good fortune of meeting Linda in real life (#irl) and have benefited greaty from our friendship and shared love to express our creativity.

Like many of our blog readers here, you might have day jobs and have yet to take the leap to explore your own creativity, or perhaps you’re dabbling in it but need encouragement.   By day, Linda is an interior designer working a full time job.  By night she is a painter, and a talented one at that!

The winding path that Linda took to be able to create the artwork for her solo opening “Towards Joy” (Opening today, Friday, September 7th, 5 – 9 p.m. EDT;See Facebook Invite HERE) has to do with the long journey of healing from a major loss. I believe we are all somehow trying to find our creative selves within this beautiful but chaotic world in which we live. Each of has our own story to share about our journey.  I invite you to find parts of yourself in Linda’s art and words. My hope is to feature more artists in this “Art Heals” Series I’ll be writing about in between interior design, remodeling tips, architecture and more. Many thanks to Linda for being the first one!

About the Art Exhibit Opening Tonight “TOWARDS JOY” – Exhibition Dates September 7 – 29th, 2018

“What brings you joy?  Do you believe that joy is accessible in every moment?  Do you believe that joy is more valuable than the pursuit of happiness?

Using creativity as a healing path to move Towards Joy, intuitive artist Linda Stabinski expresses her vision of living a more joy-full life over the popularly-promoted goal of “be happy.”  Colorful, sometimes moody, layered mixed-media pieces invite the viewer to catch a flight on the wings of birds and embrace joy as an act of resistance in an increasingly materialistic and divided world.  Also included in the exhibit are passages from her journal in which she grapples with the seemingly similar, yet distinctly different, concepts of “joy” and “happy.”  Linda also invites everyone to share what brings them joy on a collaborative piece entitled Joy is Now.”

Gallery LSJ Studio where Linda Stabinski’s Opening exhibit “Towards Joy” is tonight, 5 – 8 p.m. in Lancaster, PA. The show runs through September 29th.

Linda sometimes paints “Plein -air” in the vibrant colors of the outdoors. Here she is painting one summer in Ogungquit, Maine. (Side note: Ogungquit is dear to me as I spent one summer there, age 18, as a chambermaid and house painter.)

Linda shares her view of how art teaches her about life:

Artist Linda painting in Maine one summer.

“I believe we are all creators because we originate from the Great Creator.  I believe the making of art is a metaphor for life…The highs and the lows. The failed experiments and the surprising outcomes.  The successes.  The facing of fears and moving through them.  The rising after falling or failing.  The embracing of curiosity and the trusting of intuition.  The practice of self-compassion.  Art teaches me how to live more gracefully, more fully, more aware.”

Read more about why Linda Paints HERE.

This is what I love and admire most about Linda – the courage to be vulnerable, to let art show her the way to live, to be a more fully aware and self compassionate person. Isn’t that the risk we all take in creating our art and becoming our own person?

I remember someone telling me years ago, “You know you’re an artist when you wake up and wonder if you’ll ever be able to create again”. That constant self-doubt that permeates most human beings and artists is the “metaphor of life” that Linda talks about. I believe this is where art comes from, our personal inner core.

As Linda so personally explains how art heals  –

“I have been grieving most of my life. I just wasn’t aware of it until 2010 when the aftermath of serious life-altering events forced me to look deep inside myself and begin healing, not just the immediate pain, but all the repressed grief and memories that I had never dealt with. Since that time, with persistence and practice, I have learned that by continually returning to my creative self and expressing my creative gifts, I have been able to embrace the comforting and healing powers of my art. Making art is building a path home to myself.”

We all have something to learn from Linda’s journey “Towards Joy”. Many thanks again to Linda for agreeing to be our first artist in this new “Art Heals” series where I explore the more personal connection to our art and how art heals.

Take a moment out of your busy day to read more on Linda’s blog about how she’s dealt with the loss of her mother and reached this show “Towards Joy”. This excerpt from her blog to me sums up how art truly heals:

Paint the joy I want – I’ve always wanted – for you.  Don’t let the pain of motherlessness or the world render you weary or angry or invisible.  Share joy, not pain, through your art.- Linda Stabinski

Below is my joy in seeing Linda again this summer for a brief visit in Maine.

Me and Linda meeting up for breakfast this summer near Ogunquit, Maine where we both attended family weddings.

Thank you for reading our blog. Seek out women and artists that inspire you and help you grow. Hope you had a wonderful summer. I certainly did (more on that later) and am just now slowly getting back to work.  Happy to be writing again and have more exciting blogs coming up for you.  I wish you a joyous fall!  XO PG

Please follow Linda on Social Media:

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook

More background about Linda:

“Stabinski is a self-taught intuitive artist living and working in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Linda passionately pursues creative self-expression as a meditative practice during which she explores and heals her inner emotional landscape and communicates with her higher spiritual power whom she calls the Great Creator.

Using her hands, fingers, spray bottles, old credit cards, and other non-traditional mark-making tools, Linda’s mixed media works are comprised of multiple layers, each one rooted in curiosity about texture, shape, line, and color.  She is sensitive to balance, rhythm, and focal point, all born organically on the substrate during the creative process.  Linda paints to the beat of her heart, rather than for the practice of a specific technique or for the focus on product.

The granddaughter of an oil painter, her earliest childhood memories of making art involve watercoloring beach scenes of the Texas Gulf Coast where she was born and raised.  Originally, Linda intended to be a lawyer but decided, during her senior year of college, not to apply to law school.  She considers this one of the most liberating decisions of her life.  After a succession of administrative jobs and the birth of her only child, Linda answered the call of a creative life.  She studied interior design in the early 2000’s at the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design and, since 2003, has been a professional interior designer.

Linda’s work is held in private collections both in the U.S. and abroad.”

Note: All quotes and photography of the art are by Linda Stabinski. Other photography and opinions are my own. This is not a sponsored post.