In today's episode, I'm doing something I've never done before. I'm sharing the paintings, stories, and inner world that inspired a life and color. This is where the elemental primas were born and where I finally stopped hiding my own colors. hello everyone. Welcome to episode six of A Life In Color, the podcast. Today I am feeling excited and also nervous because this is going to be a different kind of an episode. instead of talking about general topics related to grayness and color and authenticity. Which I have enjoyed doing and I will continue to do and I hope you're enjoying it too. But today, in the name of sharing our Colors and being vulnerable and open to the feeling of being exposed when you share pieces of yourself, I am going to expose some of my colors today. I'm gonna share with you some of my art, some of my ideas, a lot of my, nerdiness and all the things that are inside of me that I have trouble sharing with the world sometimes because it feels like it's going to be too much or just a lot in general or that people will not understand. But I think because I have created an entire company around the premise of feeling empowered to share your whole self with the world, I'm going to lead by example and challenge myself to share large pieces of myself with you all. So here I am. it is kind of cold outside today and overcast, and I am wrapped up in warm clothes and I have my hot tea and I'm feeling very cozy. I have a little bit of a, I don't know if it's a cold, just a little bit under the weather, I am, yeah. Nervous, excitement is how I'm feeling and vulnerable. Today I wanna talk to you about a new collection of paintings that I have and what I have been doing with them and what I hope they do for a life and color going forward. So for many years I've been painting, as long as I can remember, I've been drawing sketching. I've always loved to sketch and draw the human form and faces and, I, I just tend. To move toward humans. In my paintings, I also love to paint nature and flowers. but a few years ago I started painting ballerinas. I was sort of just scrolling through Pinterest and I found myself being inspired by different ballerinas that I was seeing and, and I thought, I'm gonna paint some. I did ballet as a kid, and even to this day, my dad and I, every year he takes me to the Kennedy Center usually in late spring, and we go and see whatever ballet company is there. doing, whatever beautiful show is there. We've seen probably all of the big ones and some other alternative ones that I've super enjoyed. I just love, ballerinas, I love feminine, soft things, but I also love ballet because of its. Ballerinas are equal parts soft and strong. So strong, so powerful when they want to be. and so yeah, A few years ago I started painting ballerinas. It started pretty simple. and over time, you know, sometimes I would do things that were a little bit more, close up on a shoe or a hand but mostly just figures and I have a dear friend who is a professional artist who was pointing out to me that my paintings were feeling a little bit claustrophobic. Like every time I would paint a figure, even not a ballerina, any painting I was doing would sort of like run off the edges of the painting or run into the edges of the painting. And so it felt like they were being closed in or like they were trapped a little bit. And she challenged me to think about what was happening inside of me in that moment that might be trying to come out that might be appearing on the canvas. And so I gave that a lot of thought, and I've always loved the idea that when you're painting, you don't have to control what comes out onto the canvas if you just let it flow. If you just relax into it. Figure out as you go, what colors appeal to you? What shapes, what does your hand want to do with the brush? And just see what appears. It can really be a window into your soul, like what is it that you're feeling or struggling with or excited about, whatever the case may be. and so I continued to paint and I did continue to notice that my instinct was to sort of run things into the edge of the canvas. And then as I started to. I feel like I needed to move beyond my current career. This was about two years ago. I really started to understand that there's more inside of me that wants to come out, that the way that I'm spending my days are not satisfying anything within me, and I really needed to make a change because I don't, I'm just feeling this sense of. Wasting time, right? We have one. As Mary Oliver says, we have one wild and precious life, right? Why am I wasting it? Doing things that don't excite me or fill me up and don't allow me to express the things that want to come out of me. And so right around that time I painted a ballerina. It all sort of came together naturally, but I was experimenting with pouring acrylics, which were making these really exciting shapes in the background, really bright colors. And I kind of just grabbed one of those canvases one day that had already had acrylics poured onto it. It was a very experimental painting with the acry, I didn't know what I'm doing with pouring acrylics I just went whatever happened and I wasn't terribly satisfied with the result, but I was out of blank canvases. So I grabbed one of those and, and I painted the ballerina that came out of me that day. And what it ended up being was this very bright, joyful, optimistic looking ballerina. Centered on the canvas far away from the edges and with this glow about her. And so I sent it to my friend because we always shared the art that we create and she was the first to point out to me like, okay, there is something going on with you. something is moving within you. What's happening? This is totally different. This is open and spacious and joyful and airy and powerful keep going. She's very encouraging. I'm so lucky to have her, but just keep going. She said, just keep painting and see where this goes. and so I continued to paint whatever I felt like painting, which for the last couple of years has been ballerinas I liked the result of. The ballerina on top of the poured acrylics. I thought it gave it some really interesting texture and it challenged me once I had the dried pouring acrylic background to place a ballerina in the right way that it framed her, it fit with the rest of the colors and I just enjoyed that challenge. So I've created a number of these and a few months ago I kind of lined them all up and I was looking at them and trying to take them in and I had decided that it was gonna become a collection, and it occurred to me, much to my surprise, I have been painting ballerinas with superpowers like These acrylics behind them and the way that I was placing the ballerinas, a hundred percent made it look like there were powers coming out of their hands and out of their bodies, their heads just energy all around them. And when I think about this as a reflection of me over the last couple of years, I don't think that does surprise me. During these last couple of years I have been really feeling strongly, like there was something, many things stirring inside of me that wanted to come out, I've talked about it so much on here, feeling like I was trudging to work every day and forcing myself to focus on the very gray topics of my job, but that there were all of these other things that my energy was pushing me towards, that my mind was wandering towards, that I really strongly would prefer to have been doing. and all of these other, you know, a stronger voice that wanted to come out of me, more powerful opinions, more, just more, more, more wanted to come out of me. So it's not surprising to me that I was inadvertently adding these elements of, of magic and, and strength and power to these paintings that I was pouring myself into whenever I had time to paint, At some point I realized I wasn't just painting ballerinas, I was painting power, and it was the kind of power that I hadn't been allowing myself to feel. I've really been thinking a lot about how to balance softness with power, with strength, right? I am soft in many areas of my life as a mother, as a wife, when I'm an artist, I try to practice softening at every opportunity, but there's always that inner smoldering inside that power that comes out in many different ways, but it's there, and I know that we don't have to choose between softness and strength. But I've always loved that juxtaposition and I've always loved fantasy. I love to imagine different worlds and different, fictional characters and magical beings, and it just, it makes something come alive inside of me. So here I was looking at all of these magical ballerinas that I've been painting, these powerful ballerinas, and I decided I was going to. Create a story for each of them, A myth to go along with them, like an origin story to kind of dig into what are each of their superpowers and what might it represent in me, and just kind of flesh them out give them some more depth. So I did that and as I was going through each of them and describing their powers they just became these mythic beings to me. They each started to represent pieces of me, most of the time, pieces of me that I hold to, that I love dearly, that I really value and that I have trouble expressing into the world. Let's start with ness. She is fire. She is passion, anger, rage. She reminds me that those big feelings are not something to fear. And for me, I tend to think about her and her origin story to inspire me to try to embrace those feelings and not. Not suppress them, not hide them from the world, but to let them out feel them to try to understand what they're trying to tell me. To never judge myself for feeling that way, and to find a way to express them into the world, of course, in a way that doesn't hurt anybody else, but also in a way that honors me and my feelings. Then there's Lux, radiant, joyful, luminous. She's the part of me that believes that everything turns out okay, and that is a part that I have been afraid to show. for example, I have, that same dear friend. we share, video chat. So you can record a little, couple minutes video and send it to each other. And that way if you don't have time to have a phone conversation or whatever you, we can just in the moment record a video and send it off and then go about your day. I realized at one point that I tend to only send her videos when I am feeling angry or upset or sad, or I have a challenge that I need help working through, and I was not sharing with her joy and excitement and all the good things that happen in life. so we talked about that and we both agreed that we were gonna start sharing our successes, more often than we were sharing bad things. but I was thinking about why, I don't know why I feel so uncomfortable at times sharing my light, that I feel more comfortable sharing, you know, when I'm sad or grieving something or angry. I don't know. That to me, that feels more justifiable somehow, or like it's worth sharing and that my joy, I don't know. I have to dig into this a little bit more. I think there have been a lot of times in my life, I'm a very optimistic person. I love to look for the bright side of things. No matter what's going on, I have a deep knowing that everything turns out okay. That no matter how dark and horrible things get, I feel in my bones that everything turns out to be okay in the end. and I do think that good wins over evil. And I know there are a million different even now. See, I'm gonna justify it even now. There are a million different examples of really horrible evil in this world. But I think deep down that everybody is good. And I think that this is such a beautiful life and such a beautiful place. I have had a lot of times in my life when I have been ridiculed for this, yeah, there's been a lot of times when people have made fun of me for feeling that way or ridiculed my, my optimism and my joy. And so I think over time I learned to kind of cover that up and just keep it hidden, more often than not, and I think that's tragic. I don't like that for myself. Maybe you all have felt this before or maybe I'm on an island. I'm not sure, but I, I do, I tend to sort of assume that other people are not interested in my successes or my joy, and I don't wanna sound like I'm bragging or sound like I am, talking about myself too much. I realize that this sounds weird since I'm hosting a podcast, but I don't like being the center of attention. I am uncomfortable with it. If I'm talking to somebody, I don't ever wanna come away from that conversation feeling like I dominated by talking about myself, and they didn't get to participate enough, or I didn't ask enough questions about them. I tend toward. I tend in the other direction, I tend to let them dominate. I, of course, I'm interested and I always have more questions about them and I want to hear about what's happening in their lives. And, because of that, I don't, tend to share as much about myself as I would like to. And I think maybe this relates to the fact that. Uh, many of my friends I sometimes feel like don't actually know me that well and it's my own fault. But, so anyway, so I, have been trying to channel lux in the moments when I'm feeling bright and happy, but also like I am trying to suppress that for some reason when I'm talking to other people. And I have found it to be really helpful to have this visual of this mythic being who's encouraging me to feel all of my feelings and to value all of my feelings. Anyway, so this, this collection of paintings. I am naming them the Elemental primas, and each one is going to own a realm that represents a part of us that we might want to hide or mute at times, and each one of them is also going to, be associated with a set of rituals that have various purposes. And my hope is that when you meet these primas, you'll meet yourself, your creativity, your courage, your voice, and I hope that it stirs something within you. my vision for a life and color is that this is the beginning of a big, beautiful chapter or series of chapters, and I want these elemental primas to drive forward. The message that we all have so many colors within us that we need to offer to the collective palette of the world. That it's so important that we all embrace what's within us and not suppress it and mute it and hide it from everybody else. And my vision is that this turns into an enormous set of activities that we can share together. A life in color was never just about art or journaling or even self-expression. It was born out of a question that I couldn't stop asking myself. Why are so many of us who are smart, who are capable, successful still? So just quietly unhappy. We've checked every single box. We built the careers, the homes, the families, the lives we were told would fulfill us. And yet so many of us, myself included, wake up feeling gray inside every single day. And I wanted to understand that. I wanted to know what happens to all the colors that are inside of us, our creativity, our voice, our wildness, our softness, and how can we bring them back? So a life in color is my answer to that question. It's a return or a remembering of what makes us feel alive and an invitation to stop performing and start expressing ourselves and replace perfection with presence and create lives that actually feel like us. I know that that looks different for everybody. I am not trying to encourage everybody to follow my path. I'm showing you my path in hopes that it will inspire you to find your own and share it with me. This brand is not about fixing yourself. It's about reclaiming yourself. The parts of you that you were told were too much or not enough, My dream is to build more than just a podcast or paintings or art collections. I'm building something. I've been calling a mythic studio. I want it to be a creative world that helps people find their colors. Again, it's gonna be art, story, ritual, reflection, community events, parties, I don't know, whatever we end up doing so we can come together and remind us of who we are. I have this image in my head of walking into a space where every single piece of it, whether it's a painting or a journal, or a poem, or a ritual, or any of the other things that we've talked about or that I'm imagining in my head. The elemental primas are the anchors of that world. They represent realms of emotional power and transformation. they will guide everything I create here. Even maybe future children's books or future collections of paintings, herbal tea recipes. Who knows? I don't know what's gonna come out. I'm gonna follow my colors through the studio. I wanna help people come home to themselves through color, through creativity, through reflection, through empowering people, through support. I want people to feel at home here. Some people will do it through art. Others people will do it through listening to this podcast. Some people might just observe from afar. Others might wanna really deeply engage. Over time, there will be spaces to gather, to learn, to rest together, to play together. Whatever makes you feel at home, you'll see it all unfold. I have the ritual of Unbinding that I've mentioned before. I'm designing a journal that I'll tell you about soon. There's lots of reflection prompts, seasonal letters, art prints, and eventually I'm gonna create a community for us called the Palette, where we can encourage each other and offer ourselves to each other and be received in beautiful, supportive ways. I want there to be opportunities for people to share their art or their ideas or their businesses that they're creating. Whatever it is that is stirring within you. I hope that this pushes a life and color into the most dynamic prism of activity and color and inspiration for. As many people as we can, involve, and I just have this image of being surrounded by like-minded, open, fully alive people encouraging each other and challenging each other, and pushing each other to new heights and new, new layers of their own lives. When we return to our color, we change the collective palette. We parent differently, we lead differently. I wanna dive into that topic soon. We create differently and maybe the world begins to look a little more human again, more compassionate, more creative, more alive. That is a world that I want to pass on to my children, to your children. I want them to grow up knowing that all of them is welcome here. That's the world that I wanna help paint one story, one ritual, one person at a time. But that will hopefully in total help us to dig deeper within ourselves and understand how we're feeling, process, whatever we need to, and hopefully release. Whatever obstacles we are holding onto that are keeping us from allowing whatever is inside of us to flow forth into the world, this is my hope and my vision for a life and color. And this is how I am adding color to the world. It comes out of me apparently in the form of ballerinas with superpowers and myths to go along with them, and I am hoping that this grows over time. I know that there are more ballerinas coming. Right now I have about seven. And I will, tell you a little bit more about each of them. but I also would love to explore their stories and I would love to write more about, backstories and origin stories, but maybe I can write big mythic, storylines that involve all of them. I would love to build out this world that they came from and I don't know, I'm really enjoying developing them and creating this world. And I wanna draw a world map. What does it look like? Where did each of them come from? and I wanna come up with stories that would challenge them to use their powers. Like what is the, what are the limits of their powers and how do they work together? What does that look like? And what does that mean about us? If all of our inner realms that we're not expressing can work together and combine, what does that look like? Where could that go in the world? What, what new shapes could we take that have never been seen before? I'm very excited about this. let me introduce you to the first elemental Prima, the one who began it all, prima lux. She who was born from the first light before memory, before the sun, before time was even counted, there was light. It did not yet warm the skin or even cast shadows. It was the first glimmer of knowing a subtle spark of possibility and the sacred yes of existence. Awakening from that light a being emerged formed from radiance itself. She was called luxe. She arrived to reveal the treasures hidden within the dark. After all, darkness and light are not enemies, but the rhythm of becoming. For eons. She traveled the realms, lighting stars with her fingertips, creating auroras over cold stone, dancing through space and time, and shimmering arcs of gold. But when she turned her gaze to earth, she saw a planet dimming. Its people once luminous had begun to mute themselves and forget the stardust that existed within their bones. They had chosen safety, productivity, and belonging. They had traded their glow for gray, lowering their eyes and allowing their laughter to be silenced. They put out their own sparks, one by one and lux watching their sparks go out and herself, having no words for grief, began to weep in color. She descended silently and became a mirror for those around her wherever she moved. Memory stirred the scent of lilac on a warm spring morning. The feeling of fresh moss under bare feet, the sound of a laugh bubbling out of a child. She was so beautiful that they cried and smiled all at once, and from that day, a light began to sparkle in their eyes. She did not force the light, but reminded them it was always there. And to this day, she follows the gray and calls to those who are ready to remember and brave enough to feel even if it hurts. And to them, she asks, only this, will you allow yourself to be different even if no one else understands? Will you offer the world your color, even if it asks for gray? Will you stand in your own light even if it blinds? That is a jumping off point for many future stories I hope. I can't wait to share this painting with you. I will put a picture in the show notes. Go to our website, a life in color.co. You can see pictures of all of the current elemental primas. yeah, feeling very vulnerable right now. I'm so uncomfortable sharing all of this with the world, and I'm so excited to have you all finally meet these primas. I cannot wait to see where these go in the future. I hope that these inspire you the way that they have inspired me. I hope that you can see yourself. In the realms that they are representing, and I hope that going forward they will help us to remember parts of ourselves that we maybe need to shed some light on. And. Put some more energy into sharing with the world around us. If Luxe has stirred something in you, a memory, a moment, a truth, I'd love to hear it from you. Please share with me as you feel more colors coming forth. Please, I am dying to see what you all have within you and how it's gonna change the world because I know that it will. Over the next few episodes, I am going to be introducing you to the other primas that we have and we're gonna dig in a little bit deeper to each of their realms and what they mean to me, and hopefully you'll relate to that as well. In the meantime, I want to offer you a very small ritual of illumination to help you connect with Lex's energy directly. So tonight I want to invite you to light a single candle and sit in the dark with just that flame. I want you to let it remind you that your truth is not too much I want you to whisper one thing that you see clearly now that you used to ignore that is Lux returning to you. We're gonna wrap there today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode. Please send me your thoughts and if this made you feel anything, I wanna hear about it. As always, my email is Laura at a life in color.co I hope you enjoy the rest of your week and I'll talk to you soon. Thank you.