I was asked to paint live for an immersive evening where jazz, art, light and movement came together. It was a Thursday night, and I had already taught ten yoga classes that week. I was exhausted, going through heartbreak, and that morning I decided I wanted to paint blue.

When I arrived, I found out the room itself would be completely blue. Under the lighting, I could barely tell what colors I was mixing.

I had about twenty minutes to prepare before people began surrounding me. There were cameras in my face and eyes on everything I was doing. Normally my studio is sacred to me. Painting is where I disappear into myself. Now people were standing inside that experience with me.

When I started painting, everything else disappeared. I stopped thinking about who was watching me. I stopped thinking about whether I was doing it right. I moved with the paint and the canvas the same way I do when I’m alone. At some point I made a sign that said, “Please don’t speak to me. I am in Butterfly World.” That night gave a name to a place I already knew how to enter.

Butterfly World.

A place inside myself that belongs entirely to me. I could be watched without performing. I could be seen without giving myself away. I could take up space without asking whether I was allowed to. The painting became about the butterfly for the same reason. We admire what a butterfly becomes, but rarely think about everything it had to move through to become it.