Judith Monroe Posts

 

I know this may come as a shock to some, but this isn’t always an easy job. Sure it’s glamorous sleeping in late and walking down the hallway for my commute to work, or taking a road trip to the desert (guess I should blog about that, too) but most of the time I’m a working fool like anyone else.

 

 

I’m driven by this insane idea that I was created to create and I know from experience that I can be pretty miserable if I don’t, but I have to temper all that with making money through sales and making sales means someone has to actually like what I make and here’s the worst part – I don’t even always like what I’ve made. Okay, that may be a bit hyperbolic; honestly I only love a small percent of what I create, but I know people only buy art they love, and  I want all of my art to sell, except maybe the pieces I love the most… And the insanity creeps in again…

 

 

So here I am, working away in the studio, producing a baker’s dozen of artworks and I’m not loving them. I want to love them, I do, and I can find things I like about most of them, but really sometimes I’m just not feeling it.

 

 

Most of the time it’s just because I thought I knew how things were going to turn out, but then they don’t turn out that way. Another revelation: I can be as surprised as anyone about how a particular piece ends up. I guess there must be artists out there who know exactly what a piece will look like when they’re done, but I’m not one of them. And most of the time when I think I know, something else happens. I know, crazy woman acts like she doens’t know what she’s doing…

 

 

Yeah, that’s what I said, insanity. Before this blog post, maybe you thought I was at least sort of like the rest of the world but now I’ve gone and made it public. Please don’t report me to the authorities, because then they may lock me up and not let me play in the studio anymore and have crazy conversations with myself while I create.

 

 

At least my dogs don’t think I’m crazy.

 

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Once upon a time I had three art related blogs – yes, three is a lot for one little artist to keep up with and I have fallen down on the job. But I’m getting back up. This will now be the place I will post, and the only place. Except Facebook. And Instagram. Okay, the only blog. If you want to delve more into my history, you’ll have to follow these links: Wanderings, Tree Stories, or Visions. I’ll leave those up, at least for now, because there’s apparently no easy way to import them here & it would be a shame to just delete them. Onward and upward…

 

 

So this is what things are looking like in the studio today – just finishing up three new pieces on life, death and heaven. I’ve been having some interesting discussions with different people about the use of dead bird imagery and have gotten various reactions. 

 

Just for the record, I never kill birds. It shocked me to learn that some people might even ask. I love birds and I happen to think that they are quite lovely, even often in death. But I would never hurt one. It’s actually amazing to me how often I find dead birds, really – or now some of the people close to me will alert me when they find them. My mom even put one in her freezer for me, then brought it when it was more convenient. That’s how I know she loves me… or that’s why I am the way I am… 

 

But back to the imagery – death is very much a fact of life and also a big part of my spiritual beliefs, which I can’t seem to keep out of my art, and I see no reason to keep them out of my art. But I’ll try not to hit you over the head with my faith, either. (Like that would help anyone, anyway.) The dead birds symbolize death, and also reference a Bible verse in Matthew that talks about how God knows when even a sparrow falls, so how much more he watches over each of us and cares for us. (That’s also why you’ll see so many little birds in my work in general.)

 

The nests are a home, and I look at Heaven as my final home. Death is the door to Heaven and that is the connection. Flowers and plants connote growth and the little sprout in this piece is new life. The other two pieces have similar imagery and I imagine I’ll get into them here at some later date. I created all three to submit to the annual art & faith juried exhibition at the White Stone Gallery in Philadelphia, which I entered last year but didn’t get into. Maybe this year… 

 

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