swirling again!

It’s been awhile since my last entry. My paradigm is shifting again. I come by swirling compass honestly!!

Once again, I’m questioning and re-evaluating. There was a time when I approached art making with an intense amount of passion and drive. I would immerse myself completely in my work and this gave me great pleasure. I felt this incredible drive to create, to “speak”, to be heard and to connect through my visual medium. I felt disconnected from the world, misunderstood and filled with angst. I viewed my work as a language, a way of transcending.

Well, things in my life have changed. I’ve connected. I have intimate relationships in my life and I feel heard and understood now. I am at peace with my surroundings. My passions lay elsewhere, in my family. I don’t feel passionate about my art anymore and thus am easily swayed, easily distracted. I bounce from project to project, from idea to idea.

This recognition has caused me to start questioning myself as artist. Not in a self-doubting mode but in a looking to the future and what I want to experience and accomplish with my life mode. Trying to recapture who I was in my 20’s and 30’s feels futile and a bit silly. If I am not that person anymore, is it okay? At times I feel like I’m not honouring that person and her goals. But who I am today really is different and has very different desires and goals so I guess I need to find a way of letting go and having that be okay.

My goals now involve my daughter, my husband, travel and experience. There’s a whole world out there and I want to engage it. We are looking ahead to a trip to Serbia this summer. Right now, facilitating this is the most important goal to me. I am feeling less defined by what I do and more centered within, so I guess this is progress!!

self-doubt

What is it with those demons? The inner and outer critics that keep circling inside my brain.

That nagging little voice inside that taunts you. “Who are you trying to kid?” it whispers. “You don’t have what it takes, that’s not you, you are doomed to mediocrity.” Or the resonating comments of a former teacher telling me that my work is uninteresting and nobody cares.

It’s so hard to move past these, to let go and change my thought patterns. This is my brain and my fabrication. The truth is, they aren’t reality until I acquiesce. Yet, I am, at times paralyzed. I second-guess and doubt my abilities and content. I hide and procrastinate. I know all of this, my rational brain is aware, yet I am stymied.

I tell myself, “imagine, if I had confidence and believed in myself, what I could accomplish.” Others apparently do, until I talk them out of it! “Oh, no no, I couldn’t possibly!”

Recently I vowed I’d just say “yes” to every future opportunity that came my way. I didn’t grow up a “yes”-girl. I heard a lot of “no’s” as a kid. I worked hard in my 20’s challenging myself trying to shake off “the fear”. And yet, here I am again, somehow back in this skin, feeling anxious and terrified.

Hmmm, I just googled this subject! Seems I’m not the only one afflicted by this dis-ease. Ok, some comfort there. So, in future, I will accept that doubt is part of my human experience and create in spite of it! I think it boils down to doing something because you love doing it not as a means to garner praise. So I will do what I love and find a catchy song to drown out my brain!!

clarity

Trying to clear the fog from my brain. Where did it all go wrong? I used to have a very strong sense of who I was and what I had to say. Right now I’m lost. I’m grasping at straws and ideas but nothing resonates.

Time travelling back, remembering those moments in my life when I KNEW with every ounce of my being who I was and that I was doing exactly what I was put on this planet to do. The universe gave me winks and nods and my confidence was high. What did my art look like then, what was I saying?

It was very personal. It came from a vulnerable place within and exposed me. It was quite raw and honest. The years of academia and some harsh critics were yet to have their effect. It was prior to the painting ”teacher” in NYC who bluntly told me “no one cares what you have to say”. Prior to the rhetoric and conceptualism we had to wrap ourselves in to justify our creations in art school. It was purely a form of expression, an attempt to communicate visually, to emote.

It was in these years, that I received some high honours and awards. It was in these years that I felt respected and valued........and then somewhere along the way I lost it. I’ve spent the past 10 years trying to retrace my steps and figure out where it went or how I let it get away. Wasted energy. I see that now. I let a visiting artist in the role of teacher trample me. It happened. But it doesn’t define me. In the grand scheme it has no meaning. Time to let go.

So that brings me back to personal expression. I am a visual artist, I communicate visually. What am I wanting to say.
“I’m lost”
And there it is, the vision, as clear as day in my mind’s eye.
Beautiful and poetic and very much me.
Exhale with relief and inhale with jubilation!
I’m back!!!

the walk

So I have the time, 9a-3p each day. I have the space, my cozy studio. So now what?

My head is so fuzzy. Seriously I have no idea what to do or where to begin. I sit there with my pencil and paper and think ok start with drawing. What do I draw? What does my art look like? I have no idea at this point. I feel like I’m in a fog.

This is where the walk comes in. Some walk for exercise or fresh air, I walk for clarity. And to increase serotonin levels! I remember walking extensively while I was in art school, just trying to clear the fog, to get some perspective, “figure it all out”.

So I’ve been walking every morning rain or shine now for a couple of weeks. Drop my daughter off at school then head to the seawall. I love the water and the openness. Somedays I just fume and wallow in whatever the problem du jour is. Other days I just empty my brain and listen to my ipod. And then there are moments of clarity and something clicks. And there it is, the vision, voila!

I know what my artwork looks like, now I just need to execute it.... that’s a whole other issue!

space

Having your own space/room to call your own is really essential. No kids, pets or hubby allowed!! you need to be able to make a mess, take out all of your supplies and not worry about having to clean up afterwards. No worries that you’ll get remnants of dinner on your creations. And a private space away from judging eyes, where you can create without an audience.

So I have studio. A dedicated room in the house that’s mine and only mine. It’s completely separate from our living space. I can be as messy as I want and leave things set up. Problem is, it becomes a dumping ground and a crafting area for my daughter over the summer months. She is prolific and I need to tackle the stacks of her creations. Project number one is to clear the clutter and reclaim the space!

I love going in there, it’s like another realm all together, so quiet and “distant” from my everyday life. I always feeling a sense of calming when I enter...but I have difficulty getting myself in there! I procrastinate like crazy!! Hmmm..... what if my coffee maker was in there, then I’d HAVE to go in at least once a day!!! Now that’s creative thinking!

where do I begin?

I am an artist who doesn't make art!

For the past 5 years, since my daughter was born, I've tried to go easy on myself and give myself a break. I chose to concentrate all of my attention on her. I told myself, “once she's in preschool, I'll have more time”, which turned into “once she's in Junior kindergarten” which leads us to now. Now she is in full-day kindergarten. While she is thriving, I on the other hand, am a bit lost.

Where do I begin, how do I begin to regain a sense of creativity?

How do you become creative after you've pro-created?!

I counted down the days until September and the first day of school, so excited, I couldn't wait to get “my time” back again. Before marriage and baby I was always fiercely independent and very selfish of “my time”. For the past five years, I gladly traded all of that to give my daughter as much of myself as I could and I loved it. I'm proud of myself for actually being able to pull it off. But now, how do I flip the switch?

September and October have come and gone and here I sit, no creative endeavors to show for it. No paintings or drawings in the works. Worse, no ideas. The well feels dry. The “my time” I was hungry for seems to get frittered away by chores, grocery shopping, chauffeuring, house keeping and general “busy work”. I guess I've been embracing distraction because I have no idea where to begin. I feel this fog in my brain and I need to find a way to clear it and get the creative juices flowing again.

Where do I begin? Well I guess with this blog!

redesign in progress

stay tuned!

hmmm...

Rather than spending a lot of time trying to change the wind in your life, adjust your sails.