Lost Again... Found Again

"Lost Again"

Oil on Panel

10" x 20"

$820

Available for purchase at the Greenwood Artwalk starting May 8th

This last week has brought many the challenge to my little artistic self. I opt not to drag you with me through the details of memory lane, but to share with you something that I discovered about myself along the way... 

"I'm not perfect."

"WHAT????!"

I put myself through many inner struggles this week - enough to really derail me... I hate to say it. But I had to put down the brush. Yes. Thee brush! The absolutely worst thing I could do! My inner critic! He took over and busted creative bubble. I really don't know what happened. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I found myself anxious, not sleeping well, and just plain troubled as to why I could not move forward with the painting I was working on. 

Now to jump right to the "learning about myself part"... and I must quote from a book I am reading... Walking in This World, by Julia Cameron.

 "Many of us falter, thinking that in order to begin a creative work we must know precisely how to finish it and, beyond that, to insure its reception in the world. We are, in effect, asking for a guarantee of our success before we have taken the single most important step necessary to insure it. That step is commitment..."

THEN! I read THIS! Which hit it right on the head for me...

"When we are worrying about creating instead of actually creating, we are wasting our creative energy."

And then THIS one hit me again!...

"Thinking is not the enemy, but overthinking is."

It was like someone kept hitting me over my soar little swollen worried artist head, with the very book I was reading! Saying, "Get up woman! Are you denying yourself the process of making art because you are so focused on the final product? Let it go! Pick up that brush and let it flow!"

So I did. It took awhile. I paced a bit. Ate a lot. But I finally did it. I worked out my artistic kink.

So for a while this week I was Lost... and then I was found. 

Tomorrow I WILL be returning to the easel to paint "Turning Red". No drama. Just me, the brush and my "dial" turned to the creative channel!

A couple great inspirational artist's blog posts I read this past week:

Deborah T Colter - Making Optimism a Way of Life

Clint Watson - Finding Your True Modivation