I’m a professional artist. I create art in my studio, I show it, I sell it, I get to teach at the college level, it’s a charmed life. Sort of.
It’s an incredible amount of work – forty hours a week? I don’t even keep track; if I’m not working somehow, I’m eating, sleeping, walking the dogs, going to church or maybe vegging out on the couch at ten o’clock at night. But that’s okay, I love it and I can’t imagine doing anything else and not going on some kind of postal rampage.
I live for this, so the true confession? Sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing. Really. Today, for instance, I walked into the studio to paint – I’m working on a deadline coming up incredibly soon – and I really don’t know what to do next. I have no grand plan, that doesn’t usually work too well for me, and sometimes that means I have to grope blindly and just pray for what to do next. I have some notion, sort of, but there are days that those first steps are incredibly tenative and I’m scared stiff that I’m going to screw things up but not working at all is not an option.
Of course, stopping to write a blog post will postpone it just a little… but I’ve got a deadline to meet, so here goes nothing!
So what is the name of the creation featured in your confession? I absolutely LOVE your work! Can you give me some general pricing so I will know how long I have to save my pennies to call one my own?
I’m no authority on the subject, just an observer of life, mostly my own…I don’t think it’s possible for people in general, and you specifically to be ON all the time…anybody that says they are, are lying and anybody appearing to be is faking it…creativity suffers when it’s forced…of course there is a bunch the steps in art that is just the grunt work of getting it done, after the vision, before the wire reaches the hook on the wall…you seem to be doing just fine…if it all was coming too easily there would be no growth…out of the blind struggle a few grand works will accidentally emerge…Did you think you were going to do trees all your career? Really? My own approach has been almost entirely absent a grand plan with just a seasoning of knowingness…I wouldn’t have it otherwise…intuition trumps the analytical mind…we are taught it’s the other way ’round…but you mention prayer…not a rational approach to living…never-the-less it works for you…I have another name for that activity…