Cultivating While Creating Fine Art (Part 2)

(Minghui.org) (Continued from Part 1) The fast approaching Fa-rectification is a reminder of the precious time we still have to complete some tasks and help Master to save more lives. It is also time to raise our level of enlightenment quality and compassion.

I once experienced true compassion during meditation, when I was thinking of how much suffering my family was going through due to their lack of understanding of Falun Gong. I was often away from home working on important truth clarification projects and was less interested in the affairs of the everyday world. No matter how I tried to explain to them what I was doing, they didn’t want to hear it. I really felt their suffering. During meditation my heart started to warm up; it became so hot, as if I melted into the universe.

It was an incredible experience. Master said:

“Compassion is an enormous energy, the energy of righteous Gods.” (“Fa teaching at the 2009 Washington Fa Conference,” Collected Teachings Given Around the World Volume IX)

It was shown to me what I should achieve in my cultivation. The next day, I noted that some negative energy had also been lifted from my family members.

Painting is part of my cultivation. I was listening to a practitioner singing on World Falun Dafa Day. I was deeply moved by her sincerity and her beauty, but there was something sad in her eyes. I thought it came from her deep concern for the people who were unable to recognise the importance of choices they make. The message she was giving to people was, “Be saved, please don’t miss this chance again.” I wanted to capture this moment in my next painting. I imagined her coming down to the human world, majestic and caring, fulfilling her vows. I called the painting “Be Saved.”

Be Saved (Song lyrics):
We have fallen to this maze,
Helpless, lost can’t find the way,
Searching thousands of years,
One day Master reappears.
Be saved, be saved,
Please don’t miss this chance again.

In 2018, I participated in an art exhibition in Melbourne’s central business district. The theme was the 100^th anniversary of Poland regaining independence. I painted two portraits in pastels, of a boy and a girl in Polish national costumes from my region. During the exhibition, a lady started to talk to me. She said that her husband had seen a beautiful aura around my paintings that he had never seen before. He also said that he saw that the children in my painting were true and real. I responded that she was a very lucky lady with a very good husband, because not many people are allowed to see such wonderful things. I gave her a Falun Gong brochure and explained that all my energy and wisdom comes from Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa.

I later painted more children from different countries in their national costumes. I wanted to show the goodness, purity, and beauty of children no matter where they came from. When I was painting an aboriginal boy, I tried to make him happy, but I wasn’t able to. The next day I understood, we haven’t saved enough indigenous people in Australia.

I sometimes have an image in my mind that is too horrid to paint, but I will describe it anyway. I have seen a pile of bodies in the dark with their hands stretched out. I have understood that they all died while calling for help. People are waiting everywhere for us to save them, they are our responsibility. It is up to us to find them.

I work on different projects, but painting is my passion. Through my paintings I want to expose the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and show the greatness, hope, and joy that comes from righteous faith.

World Falun Dafa Day was coming, and I started to paint the children that I had always wanted to portray. Two blessed little girls holding lotus flowers with a message: Falun Dafa is good. Their hands are in a heshi position and a divine light shines on them. Something uplifting for such an important day. I painted this picture to express the happiness, joy, and gratitude that Falun Dafa children also have for our beloved and revered Master Li Hongzhi.

To be able to do this, I had to raise my character again and endure some tests and tribulations. It is said that artists have to suffer for their art. It really is like that. On the outside it may look like you are enjoying yourself, but sometimes inside you are tormented. Sometimes the part of your work that you like the most today may be not good at all the next day. You constantly have to search for the best solution, and capture the moment in form and color. The suffering can be hard, but the inner fulfillment and peace after I complete a painting is very rewarding.

To enter the 2019 NTD Art Competition in New York I had to look inside and dig out all the last bits of sadness I still had inside.

I let it go, my heart warmed up again, and the next day I received a message that my painting, “Gratitude,” with two little girls had been accepted for the Fifth International Oil Figure Painting Competition.

I still wanted to improve the painting. I carried the painting upstairs every day to my bedroom and examined it in different light. Sometimes the girls were less happy. I talked to them. They made my day. I smiled back to them. I kept on improving the painting and letting go of emotions. As I received some compliments, I had to remind myself what Master said:

“For a cultivator, all the frustrations he comes across among everyday people are trials and all the compliments he receives are tests.” (“A Cultivator is Naturally Part of It,” Essentials for Further Advancement)

My journey to New York with the painting was amazing. I had countless opportunities to talk to the predestined people on my path.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the introduction of Falun Gong (Falun Dafa) teachings to the public by Master Li Hongzhi, I painted the picture of a young girl studying the main book of Falun Gong, called Zhuan Falun, by Master Li Hongzhi.

Chinese version available
(Clearwisdom)

Cultivating While Creating Fine Art (Part 1)