A Change Of Plans … Mystery Revealed

There’s been a change of plans … The Vienna Academy of Visionary Arts announced yesterday that it has made some major curriculum changes that I agree are a great improvement for many reasons (both for the academy and its students).  Despite this, I’ve got mixed feelings about it all – and I recognize that these are entirely scarcity based (you’d think I’d be over that by now …).  So I’m writing this as part of my process of letting go.  On a deeper/ higher level, I knew this was coming, and it’s exciting to not have to wait to figure out why I’ve had a major urge to purge through garage sales and my art auction as well as to silently raise my original financial goals, which, at the onset, seemed huge.  As it turns out, I’ve been telling friends for a month now that I felt I was being prepared for something more than just a trimester away.  I didn’t know what it was, but I told them I was open to finding out.  Now that I know why, the bigger picture is so much clearer.

Let me explain.  If you’ll remember, I learned about the school through a series of synchronistic events that made it very clear that I was being called on a soul level to join the inaugural class.  At that time, figuring out the logistics (visas, housing, etc.) and finances for a single trimester seemed daunting.  Plus I didn’t really feel called to being there more than a trimester because of my health concerns about oil paints. So I decided that my main artistic goal was to focus on my drawing, which was their original program for the entire first trimester.  It will take at least 3 months of dedicated focus on this skill for me to undo the years of frustration and resistance.  Drawing is one of those things that I want to be good at AND be a natural at.  I quit ballet when I was 7 or 8 because they didn’t teach me to leap and fly within a few classes…  So the teaching staff (and I) will have their hands full with me 🙂 .  I also wasn’t attracted to the full-year program because the idea of spending a full year on the same painting didn’t really suit my personality and free-flowing intuitive painting style.

Now, however, drawing will only be done in the first month of each trimester, followed by a month of monochrome underpainting and a month of colour. Each trimester will result in 3 completed paintings based on a different theme, which makes the full-year program absolutely enticing (with Figure, Composition, Sacred Geometry,  Colour etc. for each theme):

• Fall: The Humanist Style – The ‘Western’ Canon of Classical Greek & Renaissance Art
• Winter: The Hieratic Style – The ‘Eastern’ Canon of Ancient, Islamic & Hindu-Buddhist Art
• Spring: Combining the Humanist & Hieratic Styles in Contemporary Visionary Art
• Special courses in the Promotion & Exhibition of the artist’s work are held at the end of each year.

Wow!

So now I understand why I’ve been feeling that I’m being prepared for more than a trimester away.  Five months ago, when I started fundraising, there was no way that I could conceive of doing so for an entire year studying in Europe. I personally needed to take the baby step (grant it a big baby step) before taking the leap. Now that I’ve reached my original goal through part-time jobs, art sales, crowdfunding, garage sales, and the beginnings of the Art To Go Auction, which is going quite well with 2 weeks left, it seems that anything is possible.  I haven’t sat down yet to figure out numbers / a concrete new goal, but I’m now quite sure that being in Vienna a year (and remain debt free) is what I am meant to do.

For those of you in St. John’s, there are still over 50 of my paintings without bids on them in the Art To Go Auction – please tell your friends. For those of you anywhere and everywhere, I’m now selling my limited edition decks of Spirit Calling Cards (sold out). There are 43 sets left.  Know that you’re making my dreams come true and helping me live my life’s purpose of exploring and expressing my love of beauty and the beauty of love (even if I wasn’t fully aware of all the details of what I’ve been manifesting in my career as an artist – my prayers have obviously been heard).  Thank you!

When I pulled my cards this morning, asking about these changes in the Vienna Academy of Visionary Arts’ curriculum, the “Flow” card jumped out while I was shuffling and, along with the 4 other cards I picked with my left hand, the hand of the subconscious, I have been advised to:

I know myself. I’ll need a little while before committing to the full year program. My sense, however, as it was even a month ago, is that this is what is going to happen. Yesterday’s announcement simply helped me understand why.