It's been 4 years of constant messengers telling me ''not to give up, to continue, that this is my path''. It started with crayons and a colouring book.
The moment I took that crayon and started to colour the 'Ada' from the colouring book I felt mystical, I was relieved. It was as if my soul rediscovered its mission, it was at that moment that I woke up, that I stopped being asleep, that I managed to come back to myself, I had been wondering for a while when something in me clicked and I began to change my life, and I finally found that moment.
I was at a very important point in my life, I finally had time for myself, but being in another country, far from my family and friends, made me isolated. I spent time with myself in solitude painting again. From then on I was looking for courses, drawing with YouTube, looking for a master's degree in art management (because I didn't think I could make it as an artist and just wanted to be surrounded by art), constantly buying materials and trying new techniques that I saw on Instagram, painting for myself all the time.
Also, being in a boring job as a receptionist where I have to pretend to be busy all the time lead me to open a shop on Etsy after a friend told me that I should sell my art, in my mind I was like why not, anyways I need to look busy in my laptop and that's how I started selling which was such a wow! experience for me, I thought, if I keep selling like this I can cover the cost of materials and buy more things to keep trying new styles, learn new techniques, explore new textures, etc. That was how Lina MAR literally started in Australia.
Now this was at the end of 2019, then 2020 was crazy for LinaMar, I was at the end of my marriage and that gave me time to dedicate myself like never before. Painting and running Linamar besides my admin job became the excuse for not dealing with the pain of the end of my 6 years relationship, as well as the channel through which I didn't fall completely apart.
I knew that without my partner I only had myself, I practically had no friends and my family was far away, and we were in the middle of a pandemic so I couldn't even travel to be close to them for support, I had to stay strong and Lina Mar was that strength, I was impressed by the number of times that painting has saved me, it has been my channel to create and cope with life, just as it is at this moment, LinaMar is pulling me out of the hole now.
Now, I thought that the divorce was hard, but 2022 was so absurdly challenging as I had a trigger that brought back a traumatic experience I lived as a child and that I didn't talk to anyone for 22 years, the pain was so deep, I felt as if my life wasn't worth living anymore, I couldn't find reasons to keep going and even one night I was planning to take my life, I couldn't handle the pain anymore. I'm still not sure which voice inside of me told me to stay and that's when I decided to live.
After deciding to live, I told myself ok! Yes, if I am going to live, I am going to do it well, I'm going to live a life that is cool to live for me, how do I do it? Well, I started thinking about what experiences make me happy and giving them more time and attention and surely in this way I started creating a cool livable life for myself, and that thought, that change of consciousness is what has got me where I am now.
Linamar's dream is one of the reasons that has kept me going living, the promise of feeling what I feel when I paint is part of why I did not take my life away.
It sounds so simple and the reality is that it is, my life has taken a turn that even I am surprised at how wonderful it is becoming and I am infinitely grateful to that voice for not giving up on me that night. What a painful moment and at the same time so revealing, it's been almost a year since then and I know that it was something that I had to live to become the owner of my life and my reality.
Now! Not everything is smooth sailing from there, deciding to live requires taking action, facing your fears one by one and knowing that sometimes facing your fears does not turn out as expected and you suffer from the frustration of wanting to control the outcome, but The reality is that regardless of what the situation is, every time you face a fear, you may not see it immediately but your life changes. Every time you decide to live, you are filled with incredible stories to tell, you created memorable memories.
When I decided to live, I decided to be a professional artist, work on large creative projects, and make a living from art, which led me to face the fear of how, how am I going to make it happen, and from there has been facing a thousand smaller fears along the way, I ended up entering to study a diploma in visual arts, to quit it in a month, because that teaching methodology is not my thing, to go to every single event that came my way where I can show LinaMar to see what comes out and guess what? That's how I ended up at a women's day fair, where I met Andrea, the gallery manager of Space2B, and after lots of conversations and with great fear, I took the available spot in August and I said YES let's do an exhibition, without having a theme, or an idea of how to do one.
From there the road has been beautiful, the theme came to me very naturally one night I took a friend's book and opened a page with the story of Picasso drawing something in 5 minutes on a napkin, a woman approached him and told him she wanted to buy it, he said a ridiculous price and the lady offended asked him why, since it only took him 5 minutes to draw it, and he responded that it took him 40 years of practice. And that's when something clicked on me, to be at this point in life where I am, it took me years of healing, and that is how HEALING as the concept of my first exhibition was born.
Healing for me is to realize how beautiful life is when I make peace with it and heal the wounds. Every time that I heal a wound my life simply becomes lighter, more manageable, more harmonious, with less prejudice, each time I heal a pain, whether it is mine or that I received it from someone, there is no way that I do not love my reality, that I see myself with love, with acceptance, with forgiveness, with compassion.
Healing is reconnecting with my soul, with my most genuine and unique interior so that only I can understand who I am. Healing is not being afraid of loneliness, not being afraid of living, and knowing that whatever happens, I will be fine because I have me.