Women are aesthetic by nature. A woman will notice the subtle colors of an Anjou pear and use it as inspiration to redecorate a room. She will buy a bolt of fabric just because the color moves her, and worry about how to use it later. A woman will tear a picture of a garden from a magazine just to post it on her refrigerator.
Women instinctively recognize and capture beauty, and when given the chance, will express her own intuitive energy. Women recognize and embrace the emotion that beauty ignites, and are drawn to colors based on their emotional needs. It’s why they buy yellow flowers to cheer themselves up, or add a bright scarf to an outfit.
Likewise, women can communicate and express themselves without words. A mother expresses love with bedtime lullaby, a grandmother expresses her confidence by wearing a feathered purple hat, and a toddler expresses her fearlessness by coloring on the living room wall. Even though no words are spoken, her message is clear.
Women naturally have a great sense of color and light, which is why they get to choose the new house color. Not only that, they are fearless about personal expression. Just give them some time, mental space, and tools to create, and then stand back. Women are more willing to break the rules set by the standard of the day. They have a natural instinct for doing things differently, which is why they can make a Halloween costume out of a pillowcase or turn a farmhouse door into a coffee table.
Women understand the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, the ability to see beauty in things that are imperfect. They stop to admire an intricate rusty gate, the complexity of a darkened pre-storm sky or old chair with paint chipped away, exposing it’s history of previous colors. Beauty is everywhere, and women notice it. So with all this natural instinct, what keeps women from painting? Typically, it’s intimidation, fear of failure and the lack of trust in her own aesthetic. Rigid art styles like figure- drawing or still-life painting, force students reproduce an image, which can be difficult and limiting. Thankfully, there are abstract painting styles, which allow artists to freely express themselves, discover their own natural style and essentially color outside the lines.
