Getting Lost

Dec 31, 2022

Visual artist Kara McIntosh says her creative practice begins with curiosity.

When you settle into the colours and shapes of her landscape art, this becomes evident. My own curious mind wants to meet hers. The imagery and language of the natural world she creates, seems to release something collected in the natural world over time. And it comes across as bold, strong and mysterious.

What I was most struck by when talking with Kara was how she found her way into these questions by getting lost.

Shifts in life caused by kids, jobs, losses, gains impelled her to want to connect more with the natural world, a place that is always inviting us to get lost.

In a great Paris Review interview, the writer Jim Harrison explained this about nature and art: “Antaeus magazine wanted me to write a piece for their issue about nature. I told them I couldn’t write about nature but I’d write them a little piece about getting lost and all the profoundly good aspects of being lost - the immense fresh feeling of really being lost.”

Getting lost changes our attention. And, in Jim Harrison’s words, keeps us from being boring in life and in our art.

And then there is philosopher Dr. Bayo Akomolafe who says “Getting lost is the volatile alliance between human and non-human forces that allow for newness…[it’s when] we’re trying to tap into a different place of power.”

There’s a lot of this thinking in Kara’s work and spirit. Here’s an abridged version of our conversation - with some suggestions on how to help yourself get lost and see things in their larger forms.

Kara, your work is bold and so beautiful. Where did the pull to be creative come from?

Well, it actually came as a surprise. I was never known as an arty child who spent all day colouring or painting.

I was a mother with three young children who suddenly had a desire to explore art-making. Maybe it was a way to carve out some self-care. I’m not sure, but it became a joy in my life, a way to redirect my energy into a place that felt nourishing, inspiring and calming.

There were many stops and starts of course. I tried out different mediums and it took time to establish a regular creative practice. It was hard when the kids were young but once I gained a community and a studio space, it really exploded for me. A sense of freedom opened up, I think. And an ability to tap into an energy that’s intuitive and also outside of myself. When I’m making marks and responding to those marks, I am in an open-minded and curious state that is communicating something that comes out of me but is also part of a greater body of energy outside of me. And so I’d say, spirituality has moved hand-in-hand with my development as a creative.

Many artists talk about the spiritual dimension of creativity - its mysterious and unquantifiable aspects. For those who are uncomfortable with that kind of language, I think we can all agree that creating is about moving through greater possibilities that were unknown or intangible before. It’s about bringing something into being, and I think probably what the soul says is needed for humanity to keep flourishing - to keep us from floundering and tied to limiting beliefs (of which I have many).

But so, how do you see creativity living beyond the “artist,” living in the greater world?

We all make creative decisions every day. It’s not just what artists do. We all need to find ways to let our minds meander so that we’re able to awaken to a greater intellectual mind and spirit. This happens through reflection, through connecting with our hearts and noticing what we’re not noticing. In one of my first art classes as an adult, we were painting clouds and the instructor said: “If you’ll notice, there is a darker shadow at the bottom of every cloud.” I’d never noticed that before. Which led me to think about how much I’m not noticing, what I’m not fully seeing.

And it’s self-fulfilling. It keeps on giving. Once you start noticing new things, more things become apparent to you and you grow more present to the world around you - to the patterns in nature, to the variations in colour that surround us, to the quality of light. Alice Munro talks about her work as elevating the ordinary to the extraordinary. But it’s a daily practice.

“This Reminds Me of That Place” by Kara McIntosh

Tell us more about that. How do you develop that muscle to “elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary?”

I try to get to my studio everyday. I also journal. And because I have a dog, I am outside everyday. Being in nature is essential to my process. There’s a groundedness I experience in the outdoors. There’s a language of landscape I can explore physically which then inspires me to explore it creatively with a variety of materials and mediums.

I also rely on what I’ve dubbed “creative cross training,” which is about exercising the creative muscle through different forms of art. I’d recommend poetry mash-ups, which I’ve done with artist friends on many occasions. In the mash-ups, a participant chooses a poem and each individual cuts out a selection of words and rearranges them in different ways to re-imagine what the poem is expressing. It’s about experiencing something in a new way, and it builds that muscle for seeing greater possibilities in your work.

There’s also something to be said about tuning into feminine energy, which we all possess. In a workshop I recently did, the artist leading us asked what it would look like if we were not forcing the work; what would it look like if we were allowing and trusting it to come? What if we had a deep faith that all things come in time so we could surrender our tendency to force or push so hard? In this way, we can grow our confidence and know that our journey is well underway, that our commitment to the process is enough and will lead us to where we’re meant to be.

Learning how to trust…by being devoted to a daily practice or daily habits…believing that’s enough…it certainly requires intentionality for me to get there. It’s not natural, but when I can get there, there is a great deal more of myself I can call on. Not that self that’s so eager to be in control and look good and smart and capable.

It’s been so critical to learn how to cultivate that to write a novel that feels so big and messy and important to get it RIGHT. Instead, to let it be messy and confusing and trust that it needs to go through that process….has been a process. It brings us back around to that initial idea of letting yourself get lost, and how having that ability allows something fresh to come forward. I’m so indebted to my mentor Chelene Knight, you Kara, and others who’ve taught me how to practice this not as an idea but as a “doing.”

Thanks again for taking the time to connect on this, and for giving your creative voice a chance! It’s all very motivating and beautiful. I want to give you a hug over Zoom!

More on Kara, including a video on her process.