Brush and Sword The newsletter by Sameer Sharma Issue #10 The Mirror of Portraiture - What You See In Another Is A Reflection "Seeing Through The Illusion": Portrait of an Ascetic" (Click to Inquire) “You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.” -George Bernard Shaw All art is autobiographical. An artist cannot help but reflect themselves in their work. As a portrait and figure painter, I strive to capture my subject’s likeness both visually and...
6 months ago • 1 min read
Brush and Sword The newsletter by Sameer Sharma Issue #9 I Contain Multitudes- Accepting My Shadow And My Art "I Contain Multitudes" Oil on Linen, (Click for details) “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass The Wild Horses of ‘Should’ Whitman’s verse was the inspiration for my latest painting above. These questions kept running through my mind as I was painting… "Can a monk smoke a cigarette?" "Is he any...
8 months ago • 7 min read
Brush and Sword The newsletter by Sameer Sharma Issue #8 Live The Questions-It's the search that matters; not the answers. "Littel Drop" (Click for details) Living the Questions "I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live...
12 months ago • 7 min read
Brush and Sword The newsletter by Sameer Sharma Issue #7 Vulnerability-An Artist's Real Talent Your defenses trap your true strength, safety and creativity. "Grace", oil on linen board (Click for details) The Ultimatum “If you want to paint me, then you’ll have to take off your armor,” the figure above chided back to me through the canvas. I felt threatened, exposed and raw with every mark I made. Each brush stroke seemed to verify my fears: “You can’t do this!” “This is beyond your ability!”...
about 1 year ago • 7 min read
Brush and Sword The newsletter by Sameer Sharma Issue #6 To Be Defeated By Ever Greater Things There is beauty in the breakdown. "Kintsugi Skull" Still Life, Oil on Canvas (Click to Learn More) The Man Watching This post was inspired by the poem, “The Man Watching”, by the Austrian poet and novelist, Rainer Maria Rilke. In his poem, Rilke promotes one's willingness to be defeated, dominated and shaped by forces larger than oneself. It is only through this constant, willful exposure to the...
over 1 year ago • 7 min read
Brush and Sword The newsletter by Sameer Sharma Issue #5 Fundamentals=Mastery Slow, simple and obvious is actually fast, fun and elusive Still Life of Bottles (Click to Find out More) A 30 Year Lesson “Aikido is just entering, turning, hands come up, hands come down and drop your weight,” said my sensei during one of the first Aikido classes I took almost 30 years ago. Being a complete newbie with less than a few months of training, I had no idea what he was talking about. Little did I know...
over 1 year ago • 7 min read
Brush and Sword The newsletter by Sameer Sharma Issue #4 Connection Versus Attachment-The difference is significant, not semantic. Study of Shoulder and Hand, Click to Learn More A Lesson From Tai Chi “Stay connected to your partner; not attached,” I said to my students during a recent Tai Chi class where I was teaching them push hands. They quickly discovered that being connected is not the same as being attached. The more they grabbed onto each other, the less control they had. In fact, the...
over 1 year ago • 3 min read
Brush and Sword The newsletter by Sameer Sharma Issue # 3 Befriend the Unknown and Discover the Wisdom in Not Knowing "A Gift Of Darkness" (Self-Portrait), Click to Learn More Stepping Into The Unknown "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the experts mind there are few."- Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. This is a continuation of my previous article, Invest In Loss. In that article, I explored the value of letting go. Surrendering allows something greater to arise...
over 1 year ago • 8 min read
Brush and Sword The newsletter by Sameer Sharma Issue #2 Invest In Loss-What Might You Gain By Letting Go? Figure Study, red chalk on paper. A Lesson From Push Hands “Invest in loss,” my Sifu told me (Chinese for, “teacher”) after a Tai Chi class. We had been practicing “tui sho” or “push hands” as it is known in English. Push Hands is a practice in the martial art of Tai Chi were two practitioners cross arms and try to take each other’s balance through the sensitivity of touch. Actually, the...
over 1 year ago • 6 min read