Never stop believing in your Dreams

I would like to tell you a fascinating and personal story about syncronicity and the power of intention.  It all started around 25 years ago when I became interested in Mayan culture and art, and started painting my Mayan inspired paintings.

However it’s been a struggle to get the galleries intersted in my Mayan art, as it is to foreign and doesn’t fit into any ‘popular’ category. This is after all Australia. But despite this I have continued to follow my passion over the years believing that one day I would be rewarded for my efforts.

As 2012 is the year when a 5125 year long cycle comes to the end in the  Mayan Calendar (often misquoted as the end of the Mayan Calendar and the end of the world) I knew this would bring media attention to the Maya.  So about a year ago, I reluctantly approached the Aratoi Art Gallery in Masterton about having an exhibition about this once in a life time event.  I sent them pictures of my work, and never received a reply back.  Used to being rejected by Galleries, I simply took this for yet another  ‘No not interested‘ reply and promptly forgot all about them.

Although the Mayan calendar has only become part of general knowledge in the last year or so, I have been awaiting this date for over 25 years!  So I wanted to be somewhere special on this auspicious date.  Last year I started up my new business ArteSpiral which specialises in art worshops and art tours to Mexcio.  With this date in mind, I designed my first art tour to Mexico for November this year, with the plan being to remain after the tour and celebrate the 21st December at the very heart of the  culture who created the calendar 2000 years ago, the Maya.

But fate would have it that I couldn’t get enough people for the tour and had to cancel.  It was about this time that I was approached one day by Nick at the Arotoi Museum, who was inquiring about my ‘exhibition’ later this year….’What exhibition’ was my rather confused reply.  He then told me I was booked in to have an exhibition in December.  I was completly perplexed and heard myself asking him when the opening was, as I was already starting to think about the time factor and if I would have enough time to do the work.  The 21st December was the answer…..  ‘The 21st December’ I repeated back to him, just to make sure I had heard right.  ‘Yes that’s right, would that be ok with you? he answered.  I smiled to myself and said ‘Yes that should work’.

The person who I initially contacted at the Gallery had apparently booked me in after seeing my art work, but forgot to tell me about it.  He then left the Gallery and the new exhibitions manager Nick saw my booking, but no description of my subject matter had been recorded.  So when he popped me in for the 21st December he had absolutely no idea that this date was in fact the entire focus of my show.  It just happened to fit in with their schedule…. If that is not SYNCHRONICITY I don’t know what is!

What this story illustrates to me is that if you really believe in something and keep working towards it, regardless of all the obstacles along the way, you will eventually create the desired outcome or better still something even better…

Having an art exhibition in 2012 about the Maya was my dream, but to have the opening on the 21st of December, well that was beyond my dream; that was a possibility I had never even considered!   Thus the birth of the Exhibition “Maya 2012: Portals of Infinity” was born.  The message being….

Water Temple. Digital montage by Tania Williams