I’m not particularly eager to dwell on my past life. Furthermore, I don’t regret or suffer from my mistakes /disadvantages or misfortunes. I am a pupil of Taoism and always try to live in the present.
Usually, but this time, because I am starting a new art blog again about my art, my artistic journey, my struggles, my fight with self-sabotage, my passion and my future, I thought about the past, about the first time I had a pencil/pen/brush in my hand.
The first memory is about me, 4-year-old Kasia and my 6-year-old brother – Zbysiu- painting the wall in the living room. It had to be summer. In the kitchen were baskets with summer fruit, berries, red, black, yellow, and green of all sorts and sizes. Supposedly (I do not have any recollection of doing it), I had convinced my brother to be creative and paint the wall in the living room with the berries. I don’t remember exactly how the wall looked, but I remember the punishment. It was painful.
Robert Hayden said that “all art is pain suffered and outlived”. It worked for me. Another interesting quote by Robyn Schneider: “Art is pain. And so is life.” That is true. However, I don’t experience creating art as a painful process. The excruciating process is marketing your art, which is my real issue.
![The Loony Carousel of Life.](https://kasiaturajczyk.art/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/The-loony-bin-of-life-882x1024.jpg)
GBP 5,300, 140 cm 120 cm
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
This is my painting from 2013, oil and acrylic on canvas, 140 cm x 120 cm. It is for sale, and the asking price is 6,500 pounds. It took me a whole year to paint it. It is a very interesting painting. I had an urge to paint a huge Pinocchio. I wanted to make him lean forward. I sketched him on a large canvas using thinned oil paint. Then, I quickly made a small sketchy painting on a small canvas. The space of the rectangular canvas was full of creatures and children. They were marching and holding banners and flags. They were protesting; they wanted to be free from all the rubbish and nonsense of adulthood.
The night after, I didn’t sleep and thought about that painting. A new idea was born in my brain, with the giant Pinocchio as a predominant element. I imagined a Merry-go-round, beautiful wooden horses, my children, and a few toys riding them. A carousel as a loony bin of life. The children and the toys they want to escape from this madness. Puppets, as wise creatures, would help them to achieve it. They should rescue the children from the loony bin of our lives.
The wisdom from Tao:
When it comes to a child’s curiosity, individuality, or initiative, there should never be any discouragement. In that sense, it is wrong, to say NO to a child.
NO. NO. NO. This ruins a child.
Deng-Ming-Dao, Daily Meditation.