These Pencil Walls

The walls in my studio are painted a color called “Pencil”. 

Pencil: A small little wooden tool you use to sketch, draw, doodle initial ideas.  Its noteworthy for having an eraser.  Unlike the pen, its a good choice for the beginning of a project, when we take the risk of creating something from scratch the first time.  It connects a spark, something that won’t go away, in our head, gut, mind’s eye, or where ever we find inspiration and driving force, to the sketch pad or paper outside to create fragment of something that can be worked on over and over. Its the start of bringing something out, to play with it, develop it, and eventually share.

I like the idea of thinking life more like a pencil.  Its a good metaphor for letting ourselves try things with a lot less judgment.  How else will we ever start anything new? How else will we ever really change, grow, give ourselves the chance to fail, create, experiment, play or live fully? ‘Feel’ our way into things?  There is so much uncertainty, letting go, and intuition at play in new beginnings.  It takes a long time, as new doesn’t emerge fully formed, it grows through unfolding over time.  Its beautiful really, if we get our ‘thinking’ out of the way.

I didn’t find this color browsing through the paint chips at the paint store.  Instead, it kind of came to me, as the perfect bright color, when I entered the all white walls of my empty, rather plain studio, basically: 4 walls, wooden floors, and a window.   (I maybe even thought of the color before seeing the actual studio, I don’t quite remember).  Pencil is a good color to see each day.  Sketch, erase, doodle, draw, add, erase, try, polish, and try again.  Let our other wisdom do the work.  I like this feeling of starting with pencil yellow walls.  Now lets see what these colored walls bring.

Before…

and after.. Welcome!