A Colourful Life
By Ana Mullan
(From the July - September 2020 issue of VOX)
Colour is everywhere; in our homes, schools, offices, colleges, streets, shopping centres and gardens. We cannot escape colour. Some colours feel more attractive than others, some energise us, some make us feel down.
I love vibrant colours, colours that communicate joy and life. I get to “play” almost every day with those colours at my desk facing Smithfield square. Surrounded by paint, inks, pencils and papers I feel I am fulfilling my vocation: to put joy onto paper.
Most of us have learned colour by association: the grass is green, the sky is blue and the tomato is red. And if I say black and white, immediately some sad images will come to mind that these days have become too familiar. Colour makes us think of an object, a fruit, a sign or a people group.
But colour does exist within itself, apart from any of the things we associate it with. Green is still green even if there is no grass, blue is still blue even if the sky is grey and red is still red if there is no tomato.
Colour has value for what it is in itself, not for what it represents; it has intrinsic value. When I paint my abstract paintings, it is colour that touches somebody’s soul. Each colour has its own value and it speaks to different people in different ways. Colour does not depend on an object to define it.
You might be wondering if this is an article about art and colour theory. It is about art but not art as in painting. It is about the art of living and what colour taught me about that.
During the last three months, we have been forced to slow down, to re-adjust and to do things differently. Like the majority of people, I have had to make some changes, cancel some appointments and get to know Zoom. To be honest it was not that difficult for me because I was not on my own and I didn’t have to homeschool children while still holding down a job. I did find the sudden change quite sad; the streets were empty, except for those who couldn’t follow the “Stay safe, stay home” rule because they had no home to stay safe in.
As time went by I found my new routine: every afternoon I would sit or stand at my desk and paint. I painted several canvases. I made loads of cards, all original paintings. I did what a lot of people do today; I put them on my Instagram page for sale. I was delighted when I sold a few paintings and a good selection of cards.
As time went by I realised that a lot of voices were calling for my attention. They were having an effect on me and not a good one. I started to recognise that all these voices were expecting me to “produce” more; there was an audience to please. The desire to receive “likes” or positive comments was producing a lack of freedom within me. I was in danger of paying too much attention to the voices, looking for my identity to be boosted and becoming deaf to the Great Voice who created me.
Don’t get me wrong, we all need affirmation; we all need a “well done” when we do something good. The danger is when we need constant praise and “likes,” even from strangers, to have our tank full. The reality is that if that’s what we seek the tank will never be full, because we have not been created to fully satisfy each other’s needs.
There are two lessons that I learned from thinking about colour.
One, even when something is good, like painting, it can easily make me a “slave” if it becomes the centre of my life. It will become what is called: a disordered attachment.
“My worth does not come from the opinion of a big audience but from the audience of One.”
Two, my worth does not come from the opinion of a big audience but from the audience of One.
I don’t know about you but I need to constantly be reminded of these truths by looking to the One whose life had a very defined centre.
This is what He said to His disciples, men who had very little status in society, who didn’t “produce” much in the eyes of the world:
“What’s the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail - even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries”.
“If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me”. Matthew 10:29-31;39 (MSG)
And when He had finished teaching a group of people and they said that the teaching was hard to take, and decided to leave, He asked His disciples: “Do you also want to leave?” He was not interested in how many followers He had, numbers didn’t matter to Him. What He wanted was to show how God’s kingdom is countercultural to the kingdom of this world.
For that reason colour has become a joyful reminder to me that I am not defined by what I do, how much I do or how busy I am. Nor am I defined by the voices that are constantly telling me what is important, valuable and successful but in the process diminish me as a person. Rather I find my definition in being attentive to His gentle whisper that tells me that life can be lived differently as I accept His invitation to make Him my companion in all aspects of life.
“What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not to be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving”. Jesus - Matthew 6:32 (MSG).
Ana Mullan is from Argentina but has lived in Ireland for 35 years, the last 18 in Dublin. She is an artist, a spiritual director, retreat facilitator and an enthusiastic grandmother.
