About this art thing I do

The other day I was listening to the Creative Pep Talk podcast while sketching, and Andy said something that had me feeling like I was staring into my optometrist’s eye machine. Suddenly, with a few turns of the eye wheel—click, click, click— my vision cleared. (and yes, I had to look up the name for that machine—it’s called a phoropter—and I had to draw it in my daily sketchbook.)

“Do you ever just wish that someone would take a sincere interest about what's going on inside of you, your thoughts, your feelings? Do you ever just wish somebody would really. give you the time and space to articulate all of that stuff, everything about who you are and what you're about and what you struggle with and what you believe and what you feel and what it's like to experience life through your lens?

“…I can almost certainly say that you do, not just because you're a human and I think it's definitely a human desire to be known, but I think for artists, that's not just a desire, it's more like a desperation it's like, please somebody!”

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Another thing happened that day that gave me pause. In conversation with my hiking buddy, Bill, I was explaining that I didn’t have time to devote too many hours in a morning for exercise and his response was, “What else you got to do?”

I’m not employed so I guess that’s a reasonable question. On the other hand, it just made me sad. No shade on Bill—I’m pretty sure everyone I know and love has either expressed to me outright or silently wondered the same thing.

If I don’t work. At a job. It’s all just slack time, right?

I could say a lot more about the state of our late capitalist culture that conditions us to believe that the only time of value is time spent working (and the only people of value are those who work), but for now I will simply explain that the reason I felt sad is that even the people closest to me really don’t know the value of what I do with my time.

And I have to be honest with myself—the reason they don’t know is because I haven’t told them. Not really.

******

“What else I got to do?”

I am not a professional artist—someone, that is, who makes art for money.

And yet, I am not purely a hobbyist who ONLY creates for myself. I KNOW I have something for others…I just can’t be sure about what that something is to give.

I guess if pushed, I’d explain that I dive into creative flow, problem solve, experiment, discover, learn and make.

I follow my heart without fully understanding its impulses. All I know is that there is a larger force at work here. This deep desire to create exists for a reason.

And so I draw and paint and write in my journals and sketch in my sketchbooks. I scribble, mark and spatter away…I share some on instagram and here on my website… patiently waiting to understand why. And for what purpose.

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So now maybe I have provided some glimpse '“through my lens”. But there’s one more thing I need to share about me. Something else, even bigger, that clicked, clicked, clicked into place recently.

Art is not my only love.

As much as I love to draw and paint and write—I equally love to learn.

I’ve always been this way. I’m curious. About how things work and how people function. How life works! What is the nature of reality? I want to know why. I want to know ’how to’. I want to know what else.

Art making is a wonderful way to feed my love of learning—because I get to learn how to create and how to use materials, but even more I get to learn about myself.

Filling a blank page or canvas is truly a mirror for how we fill our lives.

Besides the joy to be found in the creative moment, learning is the greatest benefit to being an artist.

Reading and taking classes is the other wonderful way I feed my love of learning. I especially love blogs (which are WAY more popular and interesting than most people realize). We are truly beyond blessed in this day and age to have access to all the interesting people and amazing minds in the world, people with real expertise and knowledge and insight and experience.

And like all of us, podcasts and books (television, video and film) attract my brainwaves too. Basically, I am moved by other people’s art and this is a huge way I learn.

And yet. I have to admit that I am hugely frustrated.

I take so much in! I learn and learn and learn. But what do I do with all these treasures? What I learn in my art. What I find In nature. What I read and feel and think about.

I myself benefit so much from what I find. I encounter ideas and shift perspective. I make changes, take action. I create every day, which brings so much insight and joy (challenges and confusion).

I live a rich, creative, curiosity-fueled inner world.

How can I share these gifts? By creating and expressing what I learn, of course.

Make Art.

And here I go...

If nothing else, 2020, the year of pause, gave me clarity about what is important and what I want to focus on creatively and personally. I posted my first picture for 2021 on instagram today. It kind of feels like a send off as I enter into the new year with clear intention and three passions:

Art

Mixed media artist Kelly Rae said recently on her blog:

“When I create, I’m at peace. I feel brave. I feel healing on all levels. I feel connected with Spirit, and to my own light. From that place, so much is born. Joy! Abundance! Community! Purpose!”

Yes.

I have been on a creative journey that began a decade ago when I gingerly stepped into visual self expression with art mediums I’d never used before. This interest soon flared into this full blown passion for color and line and form—and all things art supplies. And then before I knew it I had an art studio where I taught art journaling and mixed media.. and then this passon again transformed into a drawing obsession—art that will take the rest of my life to explore.

Earth

I am most fortunate to live and spend time in mountains and beaches. I have done so all my life. As I witness the growing effects of the climate crisis both in my own California and around the globe, and study the science of what’s to come if we don’t alter our disconnected, industrial war on the planet, I commit to change.

I step into my deep love for nature, our planet and all living beings and I will share what I love and learn about what we can all do to protect this most sacred world.

Spirit

When I talk about nature and art, I can’t help but refer to spirit. Because, of course, they are all connected. In nature and in our own creative impulse, we get closer to understanding and connecting to the mysteries of the universe. To the love and connection that binds us in innumerable ways to the earth, to each other—and to ourselves.

More and more I try to be conscious and present to not just the material forms, but the spiritual web inside and out, within, between and among us. This is also my work—our work. The work of our lifetimes.

And so I step into the portal.

Let’s hold hands and go together.

Studio Notes April 14, 2021

I’ve been thinking a lot about my art practice and why it’s so damn important to me to create. It seems to me that if I just get my head around my “why” I will have direction—and peace.

Because right now? No peace.

I am constantly questioning WHY I CREATE at all—and that “why” throws me into a brain spin working to answer that question—instead of making art.

I KNOW what my inner critic is up to (the more art you make the more you understand your inner self). She is scared to death of making art. Every time we begin a a new piece, she is afraid for me. Maybe this time I won’t be able to do it. SO…she keeps throwing this question at me to distract me from actually making art.

Why are you doing this at all?

And I take the bait. I don’t have an easy answer! I don’t know! Oh my gosh, why AM I creating art? And off I go…in my journal…in my studio staring down a blank page…tossing and turning, not sleeping, turning that question over and over in my head.

It kind of drives me crazy, but the good thing is that I don’t let her stop me—at least for long. I keep showing up to my art practice, a practice I’ve set up in my almost daily life. I don’t let my inner critic win—because, again, I KNOW this is fear talking and I KNOW it will recede once I start (every day, every new piece). And furthermore…when fear is finally quiet and I enter in that creative flow state, I KNOW there lies my answer.

But.

I really, really, REALLY want to stop asking—and spinning around—that question. I want to KNOW in my bones and in my heart, why I make art.

So this is what I know for sure (Oprah-like):

I know I enjoy making art. So much so that I have invested over the years in a lot of materials and a lot of learning—but mostly I’ve invested a lot of time. Because I LOVE it. I love to create.

But I keep asking—but why? Who am I doing it FOR? Most artists create work to share with the world—and in fact, some people define art as something someone created TO share with the world. And I think about the kinds of artists out there…novelists, musicians, fine artists…they make art for an audience.

Me? I draw and paint and collage, fill papers and sketchbooks and art journals with my art—for myself. I don’t (yet) have a physical space to share it with others like a book or a stage or a gallery wall. I do post some of my work on instagram just so my work sails past eyes other than my own…but yeah, I mostly create fro myself.

AND THAT DOESN’T FEEL LIKE ENOUGH.

Which freaks me out, because next comes all these internal judgements. If I create only for myself that makes me and selfish and self indulgent.

I KNOW BETTER.

These judgements are thoughts—limited beliefs—that I’ve adopted from family and culture: and It’s kind of a doubly whammy.

First, I am not enough, the belief goes; I am selfish, self indulgent. Art making is only worthwhile IF it is FOR someone else besides me . it’s like I believe that my experience is not worthy of having unless someone else experiences it. What?

And then, even if I believed I was enough, in our society we are not doing enough if we are not productively working within a clear business model—”contributing” as defined by a society that values creating capital. This is a belief we have all adopted from a culture that steeps us in it from practically our first breath.

Once I look at these judgement consciously, clearly my experience of my life is my experience, there is far more to life than narrow capitalist purpose, and I don’t need others to validate what I do or experience.

I am enough and it is enough to make art for myself.

Finally, not only do I know I enjoy making art and that I am worthy of enjoying it with no other reason needed—I also know that there is a paradox that lies at the center of all art making for all artists of all mediums…

Art making is for ourselves AND it is for others. Art making is a gift to ourselves. We learn and grow and connect with something much larger than ourselves when we create—and this is a gift to ourselves but it is also a gift we have to share with others. And once we have a gift to give, the desire grows to give it.

But the thing is, we HOPE that we can create something—, a piece of writing, a film, a clay bowl, a comic, a dance, a song, a canvas—hell, a symphony, a production, a space or an event or even one moment—that will move others in some way. Whether its beauty or truth, a laugh or an insight, an emotional breakthrough or a joyful good time.

But we only have that potential gift to give if we are moved ourselves. We have to enter into the experience of making and pull out that something to be expressed—from our own hearts.

I know the only way to to make art that might —might — impact others is to make it for myself.

So I’ve come full circle. I make art for myself…which I criticize myself for…but in fact the only way to make art for others IS to make art for myself.

And yes, I’m worth it.