Part I - Letting Go
When you find yourself hanging by a thread you have two choices: A) let go or B) hold on for dear life.
Faced with that particular choice - and the end of a career - six years ago, I decided to let go. Holding on would have meant holding on to the past; to relationships and behaviors that had become toxic; to aspirations and goals that, while momentarily rewarding, had led me far away from my self.
Change is never easy,. But no matter the circumstances - or from whom, where, or why they may arise - we always have the power to choose our response. And I did.
I let go.
I let go! And, thank Heaven and Hallelujah I did!
Suddenly I was free to follow my heart. Uncertainty was strange and thrilling. Fear became excitement. Obstacles turned into adventures and every moment presented me with the gift of opportunity and choice. How do I want to feel? Where do I want to go next? How do I want to spend my time? I was on the deep end, swan diving into the unknown. Whatever it was I wanted to do, I could choose to do it.
I let go.
This was the beginning of my art journey.
Part II - Exotic Birds
Writers are encouraged to write what they know. Artists are encouraged to paint what they see. I began by painting what I felt. And, despite my inner turmoil, what flowed from my brushes was pure joy. Like exotic birds in flight, a rainbow of hues flew across my canvases in abstract, energetic patterns.
Equal parts physical and visual. Brushing, scraping and moving paint across surfaces, I experimented and failed. I tried again and failed and tried again, inching my way forward in a dance of color, form and light. I was teaching myself how to paint. I was learning what it means to be an artist. My life was taking shape before my eyes.
In letting go, I was able to find a beautiful and necessary part of myself that I thought I’d lost. The part that delights in playfulness and discovery. The part that keeps our minds and our hearts young.
Part III - Coming home
I’ve lived my whole life in the American West. It’s what I know. It’s what I love.
I have intimate knowledge of her because she runs through my veins. I breathe her in and she returns to the world in sighs of thanks and prayer.
It doesn’t matter which part of the American West you experience, North or South. The fabric of this place is the same: one of strength and character, daring and fortitude.
She’s untamed beauty and rugged wilderness - rubbing up against a sea of humanity and the modern world. And yet, it’s still the Western frontier.
Time and experience have brought the world around me into focus. And in my travels, I’ve found beauty and inspiration in the history, myth, landscape and future of this miraculous place that I’ve called home my entire life.
My paintings have evolved from those first, abstract flashes of joyful liberation into works that now embody the spirit of the West and my place within it. And that’s where you’ll find me: smack-dab in the middle of it all. It’s a love affair expressed in paint. My subjects - real or imagined - are always meant to express my absolute awe and joy for this place. For this life.
Whatever the West means to you – and, I suspect it’s a bit different for each of us – my West is full of optimism and hope. In it, I see wild beauty and wild beasts. Cowboys and cowgirls. Mountains and lakes and islands and seas. Deserts and mesas and endless rolling hills and deep river valleys. Cactus and conifers. It’s a place where dreams become reality, and reality can be whatever you desire.
Everything that I paint – each original work of art – is my way of showing you a part of myself that I’m still discovering. It’s my way of giving thanks, and of shining a celebratory light on this Western life and those still wild spaces and rugged, determined individuals who call the West home.
That I get to make art is a blessing. That my paintings are finding a home in the world is a joy. That I can share it with you here is a gift.
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Lisa Butters is a visual artist whose paintings are inspired by a life lived and loved in the American West. Her passion is translating the beauty of the American West into western fine art paintings. Her original western artwork reflects the world as she sees it, embodying her hopes and dreams for the future while capturing moments in time meant to be shared.