“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You have to let yourself go and paint. In your early life you learned the discipline of form, most necessary. The knowledge of form is one that many never assimilate. You were giving yourself a thorough foundation. The framework, learning the form first, was adopted for several reasons, having to do with other existences, to some extent given.

Forget the idea of man’s work and what your paintings should (underlined) provide, and the idea of fame or success. Let yourself go with the joy of painting what you want to; but forgetting also, again, the idea that your paintings are working out problems, technical or not.

In doodles, in oils, in whatever suits you, and whatever suits you over a period of time, will find its own pattern. Do not harness yourself with the idea that you had (underlined) “so much” (in quotes) ability, and that you have not used it. That is not the case. You have instead an open channel. You chose to spend a good amount of time dealing with form.

Now you cannot regard your ability as something apart from yourself, which you must use. It is instead your own characteristic method of expressing reality, of perceiving inner data; the particular channel of your own understanding, learning and application, to which there are no limits.

Your ability is an expression of what you are. Considering it apart from yourself sets up a division that is unnecessary, and can be detrimental in that (underlined) regard.

You place too great a burden upon yourself when you consider your ability something that must (underlined) be used. It flows through you naturally. Many spontaneous ideas for paintings and sketches you automatically reject because of several reasons. They do not fit in with your ideas of work (underlined), or with your idea of what you think you ought (underlined) to do, or because you are being too ponderous, and hence shove away many spontaneously playful ideas.

Let the image in your mind flow imaginatively onto the board. You often think so in terms of the problems to be worked out that you concentrate upon those, in your terms. Do one of two things if there are distractions. Admit them and quite freely allow them to go into the painting freely, or firmly tell yourself that you will not allow them to divert you. But take one stand or the other.

The image therefore of yourself standing with the knowledge of the unspoken, the unexpressed, on the verge of new expression. The painting on the verge then of coming alive.