QUESTIONING CHALLENGES AND BRAVERY

' CHUNKY, CHUNKY GIRL'    oil on canvas  2010  30x40  (c) Loren Fidalgo 2010

Every time I look at this painting it just cracks me up!  I don't know why I painted it and what the inspiration was, but I just love it.( Possibly, I will do an 'on my easel' and talk about what I THINK it is about?)  I thought this painting would be a good lead in to this post since she surely looks like she has something going on and is a little flirty with her winking eye. I know she is somewhat fearless but that is not totally what I was feeling when I put the paint on the canvas and so I ask "why"? "Why is she fearless?" She looks as if she is so free and easy going and that is definetly the place we all would like to be.  Well, maybe some of us? For me it has been a little bit challenging to be totally fearless but it's getting better especially these in past few weeks and months.
My journey the last few months has been an interesting one. I have been feeling a little more uncertain and unsure and have lost some faith about some aspects of my life and the direction I am going in than I usually do.  For those who do not know, about 6 years ago, a huge 10lb. ceramic vase came flying down onto my head in the Ceramics class I was taking and changed my life forever.   After chatting with my friend Jill the other day about this accident experience, l have been thinking a lot about the vase that fell on my head 6 years ago and how it has impacted me, my decisions, my preferences, my needs and my passions  (read more about head injury here and here )   I still do not know whether the head injury I developed had really influenced my desires and my calling into painting and mixed media.  Actually, I had been doing various kinds of art since childhood so it might have just been random?   But this change seemed different in it's flavor and intensity. I do know that I have not looked back to the life I had before. Since then I have slowly but certainly become more open, more free and more uninhibited than I ever was before the vase fell on my head.  Before the accident,  I felt I somewhat closed, isolated and wanting to be alone a lot.  I guess I was introverted and a little shy and I felt that venturing out was a scary and challenging thing for me to do.  Now I feel so free, I am being 'brave' and wanting to express myself so intensely and even more than I did when I first began painting.  I have become much more social and needing that 'girlfriend experience'  more often.  Friends are so important to me and making them seems effortless and joyful now.  Oh, how much has changed.  I have more courage than I used to.  Confidence in my work and my direction is still a little bit shaky, but it is also getting better everyday, as well.  I just look at things differently now.  There was a 'shift', a 'snap', a 'pop' in my psyche after the injury that I still can not explain.  Not knowing whether I suffered any damaged really is a curious thing for me to ponder.  I ask myself often, "why have I changed?  Where in my brain did I change? Why have my desires and my artistic interests changed so dramatically? Why did my life change creatively and socially?"

I think I will forever wonder what happened to me that day in 2008?  I will always contemplate if painting and mixed media was a calling as a result from the head injury or just a mere coincidence or odd happening that was bound to come out some time and reveal itself to me any how.  The question still remains?  I think this painting 'Chunky, Chunky Girl' is possibly about letting yourself go and shedding old skin.  Maybe it's about a way of saying,  "Hey there.  I see you and you see me?" Maybe it's about revealing ourselves to ourselves and to others and feeling more vulnerable when we do it?  Maybe it's about stepping forward and being who you truly are, chunky or not chunky and naked or not naked?  But in the end of this post, I have come to think that this painting is about totally about 'bravery'.  Brave that we put ourselves out there and that we don't really know what will come back to us.  So that is where I will leave it for now, 'CHUNKY GIRL' is about being BRAVE.

If you have encountered any experience like mine or just want to comment about being brave, , please leave a message? I would love to hear from you.  I have heard other people having a similar thing happen to them and I would love to know how many there are out there? 

Thanks for reading my post.
Cheers,
Loren