How Art & Healing are Intimately Connected
Mandala Rose | Watercolor painting by Leslie Montana
Mandala Rose
Watercolor on cold press paper
Paper size: 22 x 30, Image size: 16 x 17 Inches
Buy a print of this. painting here.
When Spirit and Matter Are One
Flowers remind me of what I deeply value. They ground some of the highest and most refined frequencies onto this planet. After years of observation and perfecting my craft, the frequencies I work with while painting now embed themselves into my work. It's a form of practical spirituality that I practice. It's not contrived, it happens naturally. But giving it words is almost impossible.
Some backstory and How I got here
As a child, I was in awe when I learned about the concept of infinity. It was a breakthrough moment for my young mind to contemplate. Over the years, a natural sense of appreciation for the depth of life, the stuff no one was talking about then, slowly created the foundation of my spiritual identity.
I understood that we humans are an expression of the infinite in this tangible and physical world. I knew spirit and matter were one, but I didn't have the words to convey what I knew back then. Creativity was my best mode of expression. It still is.
In those tender years, my mother understood and encouraged me. She'd say I walked to the beat of a different drum. Fortunately, I was encouraged to be myself through my creativity. But like everyone else, expectations and societal norms began to encroach as I grew older. But when you're creative, some forms of socialization don't fit no matter how hard you try.
When we're distracted and busy with urgencies, emergencies, and things that keep us identified with what is not us, we tend to forget our truth and our origin. Well, how could we remember under these conditions? We feel disconnected and become limited by our stories, traumas and so on. No one likes this, but many still cling to the crazy-making programming anyway, often until it's forced to leave. It has to go, and it will one way or another.
In working with flowers, especially roses, I learned to re-attune myself to deeper levels of love. By trial and error, I found the connectedness I was looking for in Nature. Environments that had long fed fear and upset started disappearing from my life. It was not easy to find my way through, but I did and it was worth it. I moved on from who I was and who I thought myself to be, and I became more truly me.
The Fantastic Reality of ART
Earth 101: Frequency takes on form in the material world. When we humans create it can show up as artwork. We midwife matter into reality. Touched by the numinous, that which cannot be captured or defined, we dance with the divine. We create.
Creation happens at the juncture between spirit and matter. That intersection is the place where the infinite anchors into our reality. The arts exemplify this process.
We're constantly at that crossroads, the intersection where spirit becomes matter. It's our aliveness, embodiment and connection with the infinite that make it all happen. For me, making paintings like Mandala Rose connects me with the truly fantastic reality of art.
Thank you for visiting.
Inquiries please contact me.
—Leslie Montana
Prints of this painting here
Mandala Rose, shown in progress
Flower Essence Transmission Collection
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Exquisite Paintings on the Nature of Flowers is a body of work based on a sophisticated visual analysis of Nature’s frequencies = LOVE. My long-standing body of work, ongoing and now in phase two, began in the early 1990s and is the culmination of a lifetime quest, a sacred journey into the heart of Nature, Beauty, and Healing the myth of separation. —Leslie Montana