Choosing to Rest

In the slow rhythm of quilling, I find a space where breath, thought, and attention begin to align. Rest does not always mean stopping. Sometimes it exists within the act of making itself.

A seed teaches patience. Creation happens silently beneath the surface long before it becomes visible. The woman and the seed are inseparable metaphors. Both carry the quiet power to create life, slowly, patiently, and in their own time.

For me, pausing is not sitting still in the studio. It is going to the people and places I want to understand, observing quietly, and letting life reveal itself slowly.

Painting may not look like rest, but inside the repetition of the work, the mind becomes quiet and the body slowly settles. Healing begins when we allow ourselves to slow down enough to listen to what is happening within. My practice deals with healing. And I think for me an important essential element of healing is rest. But what I really speak about in my work is going deeper inside yourself. And the journey of going deeper involves slowing down.

Creativity is like a seed. It needs a silent, undisturbed place to grow. When the world becomes a race, the only way to protect creativity is to step out of it. I like staying in a small corner and treating it as a big world.

Beauty and peace are not found in material comforts, but in the vitality of the soul that learns to pause, accept its circumstances, and live with quiet joy.

Sometimes the most important part of making art is allowing yourself to pause long enough for the next idea to arrive. I had to take a step back and ask if I had strayed from why I began. And I had. So I had to consciously say that’s what I want and protect that more than anything else.

When I speak to the women I paint, I try to understand who they are beyond the roles they carry.

Pause allows us to see the beauty and balance that already exists within us. Balance appears when we pause long enough to see ourselves clearly.

The act of making is quick. The realization that leads to it takes time. Stillness is what allows the next gesture to be honest rather than forced.

In modern life we are always running after something, yet we rarely stop to find peace within ourselves.

When I walk in the woods, I'm not looking for subjects to paint. I'm connecting with myself. What appears on the canvas is simply the essence of that experience.

For me, objects are never just objects. A slipper, a pot, a shadow – each carries a life, a personality. They hold the stories of the people who live with them.