Launching Authentic Voice
I recently said yes to a last-minute invitation to learn how to extract colors from flowers with Mona Lewis, artist, Waldorf educator, and author of Nature’s Paintbox. Something about the invitation from my longtime friend, the creative force Wanda Wen, creator of Soolip, felt right.
As I smudged buds and leaves with my thumbs, and as oak bark extract met handmade cotton paper, I couldn’t believe I had lived for 55 years without knowing that each plant gives up its beauty so willingly, so fully, for us.
I felt guilty, removing the color from each stunning flower, but the vibrant hues emerging onto the page shouted, “It’s okay. I want you to discover my brilliance.”
And suddenly the experience of releasing each color served as a metaphor for publicly launching Authentic Voice in July of 2022 (just one week from the date of this blog).
There’s nothing more natural, more inviting, more generous than leaning into your whole self and seeing it revealed on the page.
And once you get started, it’s almost impossible to stop. We were only instructed to create a color wheel in Mona’s workshop, but once the plants began to give themselves up to me, I couldn’t help but begin to paint.
Hues from Indigo. (The blob is a rose petal in disguise.) Not high art, but my art, and I like it just fine.
And that’s what happens at Authentic Voice: Once you begin to tap into your whole self on the page, I dare you to stop. The pen pours forth, the words tumble out faster than you can capture them on the page. It’s an out-of-body experience: your voice comes through unchecked, uninhibited, free.
I don’t know that I can articulate what’s happening here: I added iron and citrus, with abandon, to the indigo, and color took off. Then the black oak bark asserted itself—perhaps a metaphor for my fears, poking through the brilliance? Or am I taking myself too seriously?
There’s a beauty to letting yourself go, in allowing the colors, the self, the voice, to shine through.
Especially now.
These past few years have been tough. Everyone I know is going through a lot, feeling uncertain, hesitant, untethered. But I know there’s one route forward: I need to say what I need to say—with color, with words, with whatever it takes—to acknowledge my full self. Otherwise, what am I doing here?
I continued to play, inspired by my son, Lucca, who’s never afraid to destroy in the act of creating. Thank you, Lucca. I wish I could follow you to art school!
Meet Jen
I find nothing more rewarding than inspiring people to value their stories and the fullness of their journey.
