Coach Bennett’s Pearls of Wisdom 1 – Do the run you can do

In this blog series, I am going to share with you some of Coach Bennett’s pearls of wisdom and how they apply to my art practice.

First up, do the run the you can do. My dream is to run the Athens Marathon – the OG of marathons. I wanted to run in when I turned 42, since it would 42 km at 42! But I was pregnant. Now, with 2 kids, it is really hard to find the time to train for a half-marathon, let alone for a full 42km (26.2 miles). But I am still running.

Somedays, the only run I can do is 5 minutes long at a very slow pace. Other days, I can crank out a speed run for 30 min. The reasons for that vary: it could be PMS, a sick kid who kept me up, a glass of wine (or 3) the night before, or a work meeting that I can’t push back. And I am fine with it. 5 minutes is better than 0 minutes!

If I only did 5 minutes every day, I would run 30 hours in one year!

A few months ago, I really wanted to create this pattern collection inspired by the Brazilian Pantanal. It is this area south of the Amazon, with marsh lands and amazing wildlife. I wanted to center the collection on the fauna of the area: jaguars, alligators, macaws. So I started painting and trying to build the patterns.

And I digitized things and started working on patterns. This is one of the results:

It did not feel good, I felt like I was struggling (and not in a good way). I was second guessing myself.

So I took Coach Bennett’s advice: Do the collection you can do. Now, what I mean by that is that I love painting flowers, I enjoy it, I find it relaxing and it refills my soul. Just like a good run! Making patterns out of those flowers and then seeing them come to life is also very soul-filling. So I worked on this collection of Hellebores. And it is one of my favorites!

Here are some of the paintings from that collection:

I did challenge myself by using a different medium, but I love how these flowers turned out! And look at the resulting patterns:

And after this one, I pumped out another collection right away, because I was so inspired and happy.

I am still going to create a collection with the Brazilian fauna, but it is going to be like a half-marathon. I need to train for it. So I am going to take advantage of one of my classes, and workshop that collection there.

Stay tuned for the next topic in this series: Measure success as many ways as you can!