“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] I see paintings that you will produce. [...] And when you are finished with the large painting, I will tell you something about it that you may perhaps realize subconsciously. [...]

(Here Seth refers to preparations I am making to paint a larger, 3/4-length portrait. Jane has seen a pen and ink drawing I did recently, which is the basis for the painting.

(A note: After the session Jane told me that she knew what Seth was going to tell me when I had finished the painting under discussion. [...] But as Seth told me about the painting Jane knew what he was to tell me.)

[...] You may portray a basic idea in various ways, and produce many excellent paintings in doing so. [...]

If new ambrya—think of embryo now—(in parentheses now:) data were to be inserted into a painting, a completed painting, from the inside, then all the relationships within the painting would change. [...]

[...] As I sat on the couch in our living room, my oil painting of Ianodiala, the 14th century Turkish clairvoyant, hung on the wall behind me. This is the painting Jane had used as a teaching instrument on Dec. [...]

[...] Write about them, paint them, talk about them, anything but feel them. [...]

[...] This included my painting, my job at Artistic, my attitudes about money, classes—in short everything I could think of, I guess. [...]

(Pause.) These sessions themselves involve the highest levels of creative productivity, at many, many levels, so he should refresh himself painting or doing whatever he likes, for that refreshment adds to his creativity, of course. [...] For a while, again, have him write three hours of free writing, and paint or whatever. [...]

When you mentioned his ink sketches, he instantly wanted to play at painting again, but felt, guiltily, that he should not. [...]

(Jane faced the painting as she sat in her Kennedy rocker, but my back was to it because of my position on the couch. [...] Jane told me that Joseph, representing my own entity, smiled broadly at her in a way the painting actually doesn’t. The expression in the eyes changed first, the smile spreading from them down to the mouth. [...] It was as though the painting became abruptly alive, although the painted head of Ruburt did not change.

(1. As we sat waiting for the session to begin, Jane told me that the face of Joseph, in my oil painting of Ruburt and Joseph,^* smiled down at her from its spot on the living room wall. When Jane became aware of the smiling effect she looked away from the painting, then quickly back at it. [...]

[...] At the same time Jane began to describe the smile she perceived in the painting; I could see the painting well enough when she asked me to check it, although my vision effect was still building. [...]

(Jane doesn’t particularly like the painting, and has never seen this change in it before.

A note: I can add that I didn’t give up on my dream painting after all. [...] I managed to carry off the painting this time—merely giving impressions of the colors and foregoing their fantastic intensities and patterns. Next, I painted a small oil of the lights emitted by the two table lamps in my waking experience. The practice on the dream painting helped: This time I was able to hint more easily at the great combined radiance of those lights. [...]

This morning I tried to rough-in a small oil painting of myself standing before one of those walls of crystal color I’d seen in the dream. [...] I’d anticipated the failure to some extent: With mere oil paint I just couldn’t match the iridescence of that dream wall of light and color. [...] Should I junk the half-finished painting, or try to complete it? [...]

(Long pause.) The paintings that you have envisioned, for example, exist there, and they are every bit as real as the paintings in your studio. [...]

(“I didn’t get far with my little painting this morning”)

[...] The painting to you had such strongly feminine connotations that subconsciously you felt your studio was like a womb, out of which the paintings were produced. [...]

[...] The fact that you painted and it did not seem to bring you money served further to make you distrust these creative abilities. [...]

[...] When the natural freely creative energies were aroused in you, you instantly dispensed with all ideas of a commercial market, and completely divorced the idea of painting from selling for the reasons given.

(I pointed to a painting I had just finished, of a male looking up and to my left. [...]

(“Infinite intelligence attracts me to the buyers for each of my paintings. These buyers want the paintings and will enjoy having them. [...] These buyers may look at many other paintings, but mine are the ones they want and will buy, because they are guided by the infinite intelligence within each of them. [...]

(The infinite intelligence which gave me this desire to paint leads, guides, and reveals to me the perfect plan for the unfolding of my desire. [...]

These feelings, this extra vitality, enriches then paintings that you did in the past earlier. These feelings were picked up by the people who have been buying your paintings of late, and the same feelings will radiate outward, you see, wherever the paintings may be. [...]

[...] These feelings are released not only in paintings that you are working on, say, now, but on paintings that were completed earlier. [...]

[...] I want to keep it in mind especially re paintings and sales, of course. [...] Even as I write this paragraph, another student asked the price on a still life I painted a couple of years ago....)

[...] Naturally the session must be followed and not just read, from the sketching or painting suggestions right on. [...]

[...] I intend to finish this session today, and make preparations to resume painting each day. I think at the moment that I’ll continue to rise early to get three hours in on Mass Events in the mornings, paint and run errands in the afternoons, and have evenings for either sessions or more work on Mass Events. [...]

[...] Ruburt does not feel that you are amiss because you are not “making money on your own,” but he feels deeply your own discontent in that area, and he feels bewildered—for years ago you said so often that it would be great if you could just paint or write without worrying about money. [...] You would do far better, however, to think of painting rather than a simple job, which would certainly seem like cutting off your nose to spite your face. [...]

Whenever you cut off your painting, you have difficulties—and that also involves this internal provincial concept of the male image, for you get upset about your painting because it does not bring in money, when a male’s pursuit should. [...]

[...] I would go back to painting, try to sell some, and possibly end up with a part-time job for ready money—anything to break the vicious mental pattern of distrust I seem to keep creating. [...]

[...] The object is a card, blank on the reverse side, written to Jane by Caroline Keck, conservator of the Brooklyn Museum; it was mailed to Jane in early August, along with a copy of the book, Is Your Contemporary Painting More Temporary Than You Think? and a mimeographed list of various addresses furnishing technical help and supplies regarding the conservation of paintings. [...]

(The word “museum" has historical connotations, and the Kecks deal with old paintings, often of historic interest, so Jane is correct when she asserts that old paintings such as those the Kecks handled while in Elmira in August 1964, are also historical events.

(The envelope object for tonight was a card sent to Jane by Caroline Keck, conservator of paintings for the Brooklyn Museum, in 1964. [...]

[...] A painting could be a framework, fitting within another framework—the frame. [...]

[...] My painting hasn’t been going well lately, and I’ve been concerned about that. Actually I’m trying a number of different painting approaches, and think I got sidetracked into too much experimentation, so as I told Jane I’m sure painting is involved in my upsets. [...]

[...] I also painted better. [...] I also began finishing a painting with a new and free determination, working much more easily than I had been doing. [...] I feel quite good about the painting endeavor now, and will try to keep things in balance.

In a sense, painting is man’s natural attempt to create an original but coherent, mental yet physical interpretation of his own reality—and by extension to create a new version of reality for his species. It is as natural for man to paint as for the spider to spin his web. [...]

[...] I was so bothered, in fact, that I had great difficulty concentrating on painting.

He was attracted to the painting, and subconsciously he resented giving into the impulse of giving the painting to his mother. As a subconscious punishment he allowed the painting to be lost through a series of small slips, errors and mistakes of his own, and others.

Paintings, and for Ruburt’s benefit poetry—I certainly don’t want Ruburt to feel neglected—but paintings have their own vitality and exist independently of the artist, and are the result of a spontaneous, free, impulsive burst of giving that asks no return, and as such, because no return is expected, returns are given.

[...] This time, through the creation of beauty in paintings, he more than makes up for past errors; not only because paintings certainly should possess beauty, but because they instill positive creative thoughts in the mind of the beholder.

[...] Mark’s paintings of the crucifixion, like other such paintings, created a concept form, within which an unexpressable concept is transformed into expressible terms and placed within a spatial framework.

[...] At first I understood little about the possible sources for their inspiration; I simply put my urge to paint them to work. [...] The vision is either of the finished painting, or of the individual who is to be portrayed. [...] Few of the paintings are of Speakers, obviously, and in no case did I realize I was working with such a personality.

[...] Since I haven’t painted any self-portraits I wouldn’t have been included in the list anyhow, but Seth did neglect to mention my painting of Jane. [...]

(“Number twenty-eight: Have I painted any portraits of Speakers?”)

[...] One was a painting purchased by Carl and Sue Watkins (which, half jokingly, we had called Moses); one, the portrait of me (pause); and one that you have not completed — that the Dean (Seth’s friendly title for Tom M., one of the members of ESP class) asked about recently, of a woman. [...]

(As usual, Seth’s observations about painting are excellent; I’ve said this many times before. Nor have I ever heard Jane discuss painting in Seth’s manner. [...]

(The session began late this evening because of my own distractions with painting; I worked late, and needed a short rest. [...]

[...] Remember that the soul is plain behind the facade that you see — that even the body is in a constant state of almost magical activity, even though as you paint it in its chair, it is physically motionless.

[...] The painting is of a patient in the hospital where my father stays. [...]

[...] Painting is as natural to you as dreaming. [...] Let your painting therefore come in the same fashion, and Ruburt’s flexibility. [...]

You inhibit your own painting so that others will not feel inferior by contrast. [...]

You are, as he is, wondering how you will do what you want to, on your part—your painting, the book, renewed regular sessions, and regular chores. [...]

[...] You also wonder if the book is more than you can chew—not alone, but in relationship with your painting. [...]

[...] You still wonder that it will detract from painting. [...]

It is quite possible you see for you to have results tomorrow, but it takes time to paint the picture from your idea. You know you will do the painting in physical terms, and you know you will have results in this endeavor, and excellent ones. [...]

[...] There was also a feeling, “Since you do not buy my paintings, do not hand me your junk.” But these people did not feel you wanted them to buy your paintings. [...]

Realize that each time you replace a negative thought or feeling by a positive one, this is like making a correction in a painting. [...]

[...] If you do not sell a painting by next week, for example, I do not want you to say “This does not work.” [...]

Now: We want to publish the book—and I will here continue, for our purposes, dealing with a book’s production rather than a painting’s. Still, however, we will keep the idea of a painting for a different reason. [...]

[...] Framework 2’s communication system is at once simpler and more complex that Framework 1’s. Just as, say, your intent to paint a picture automatically has your fingers all moving in the proper directions, and your body manipulating properly, so that the desired painting results, so in a larger fashion your clear intent is communicated to each of the people involved—at a level without static—yours or theirs. [...]

[...] To brood or worry, or become resentful, is as regrettable as it would be if you, say, painted a big X over one of your paintings because you were dissatisfied with a detail or two. [...]

[...] The artist paints because he loves to. His brain and fingers are able to produce a painting because they are themselves formed of love. [...]

[...] When you are writing you are pleased, finally at least, with the working of your mind—but angry that you are not painting. When you are painting you feel guilty not only because the painting does not bring in money—by now not that much of a concern, only a nagging accusation—but there also you haggle at your intellect. You wish for the intensified emotional preoccupation that would close your mind to all else but painting.

[...] You berate yourself on the one hand for an intellect that it seems to you separates you from immediate emotional contact with painting and with others. [...]

Physical exercise becomes the area between, taking you from both your painting and writing, and furthermore is a reminder, an angry one, that the physical working area—the chores—are largely yours to do.

[...] Your own painting is growing despite your own ideas of what you think it should be. [...]

[...] Poetry and painting were both functional in ways that I will describe in our next book (humorously, elaborately casual), and “esthetic.” But poetry and painting have always involved primarily man’s attempt to understand himself and his world. The original functions of art—meaning poetry and painting here specifically—have been largely forgotten. [...]

[...] Your painting set you apart. [...]

(To me:) I want you to specifically understand that there is and can be no conflict, for example, between your writing and painting, for in the most basic of ways they represent different methods of exploring the meaning and the source of creativity itself. [...]