Someone once told me that “Art is the most universally acceptable form of communicating any given Message.”  

As I’ve sat here trying to figure out what to say in this artist’s profile, and just exactly how to say it, I have been feeling incredibly blocked every step of the way. I have come to acknowledge and accept that every aspect of my journey of authentic self expression has demanded a certain level of flow in order for me to feel powerful and comfortable with what is coming from me. It does not feel authentic for me to sit here and come up with any certain way of describing myself in order to inform any given reader of how I creatively express myself, and when that all began.

I have no formal training as an artist, and since 2013 I’ve had great difficulty in finding the proper time and space within my personal life to be able to sit down and intentionally create art with my hands. The sketches displayed in this series have all been worked on periodically since 2015, and they were only able to come through me at sporadic intervals of time when the rest of my life was able to line up and afford me some space to sit with my graphite and book. In these open and free moments, I simply allow myself to surrender to the music playing from my earbuds, and then whatever emotional wave is crashing through heart at that time is what seems to flood my fingers with animation, and overflows out onto the page in front of me. It seems to be a direct connection with my heART. Anytime I have allowed my mental perceptions of what is coming through me to supersede what is wanting to be organically expressed, I’ve noticed that my creative flow shuts down and I am blocked. At various intervals of time throughout this journey, theses blocks have taken months and sometimes years to subside and open up again.

Art has taught me to accept myself over and over again with greater authenticity and trust in my own highest intelligence and capacities. Even though these sketched images and writings came through my hand, a large part of me doesn’t feel as though I can take credit for their production. I honestly feel like “I” was removed from the process, and something greater than myself moved through me. I simply surrendered to the flow of whatever that (e)motion was.

 After becoming fully Reiki certified in 2013, I set a personal intention with myself and the Universe. My wording for that statement simply was: “My life purpose is to be used by Creator as a powerful healing vessel for the greatest good of all.” I never would have imagined some of the ways my journey would unfold after that in order for this Mission Statement to be accomplished. I have allowed life to show me The Way one step at a time, being guided always through signs, synchronicities, and an overall feeling of peace and inspiration. But I have come to understand that this entire process of showing up for the world around me has actually been a transformative process of me getting better in touch with myself; and learning to accept, love, and believe in myself unconditionally and ruthlessly. Simultaneously, as this personal healing has unfolded over time, I have found that the ways in which I am being called to express it has gotten simpler and therefore more balanced for how it effects my daily quality of life.

As I’ve contemplated over time what the overall Message is that I feel Creator has bestowed upon me to express and embody for the highest good of all, I do not believe it can be better said than the simple yet powerful statement of “I AM”.

These graphite sketches and these written words are only one small way in which that Universal Truth has moved me.

I truly feel that everyone is an Artist, and each of us has an authentic Message that we are born to express. We just simply need to get out of our own ways, with our limiting self-beliefs, of how that Divinity is meant and able to move through us.

“I AM” // Rachel Grundon