Your Could be right~

 Yesterday morning after posting the array of scatter thoughts...More like "which way should I go" thoughts.   This is the time of year I look at my goals the things I did through out the year...and I have to admit. I've done  a heck of whole lot. Grateful that I've been able to do what I do which the income has come in handy many times now this pass year.  Making my art as my son said is not a job it's a passion...and I'm sure you've heard this before.. "find something you love to do and you never have to work a day in your life." Well I've been very lucky. Even the husband has voiced a bit of jealousy here and there over what I'm able to do...Be the wife, mother, homestead manager, artists, instructor and manage all that goes with the business side of being an artist. Plus added dog walking, fish tank cleaning, yard work, cut and scooping up the dog piles, shopping for the food, and shopping for the gifts-I'm not a shopper so it's something I do for the love of the family...when I read the book Happier at Home I we elated to hear someone else doesn't like to shop.  So as I make a wagon run around the topic today of "You could be right" I share my thoughts as I walk

Yes walk and walk and walk yesterday..I put on 10 miles between the woods and the road...It took me about a 1/2 mile to get settled into a walking pace..I knew I needed to get grounded.  My restless soul is going through menopause now and it has me questioning "who am I going to be when I make it through?" So I walk and I hear finally "Laura it's just about being today...no need to make plans there are many things already on your list to do... be...be present in the moment...right then I hearing the chur of the Nuthatches and chatter of the Red Belly Woodpeckers...there such a delight to hear and see.  You know a woodpecker is a creature to help you with you thinking so I took this all as a good sign.  I walk and know there are many things already in motion and there's a plan for me..trust in the plan..I many not know what that plan will be but I'm to trust...Heck I've got so much that has come by with great surprise for me...so many Opportunities I ask how did this happen but then I know some one's got a plan for me and I'm just to keep walking. And say thank you to all the good fortunes in the creative business I've been in. "Heck to my life to that fact...thank you for my life"

So I start to head to our local Aldi's to do some more homestead shopping. Then home and unload and put the stuff in the refrigerator..When my youngest daughter lets me know there's a bit of a family crises going on the other side of the family... I walk the dogs..not sure what is next...I then walk to my niece's home in the neighborhood and comfort them and share what little bit of elder wisdom I have...letting them know sometimes things happen to good people and we wonder but we have trust the rest will be revealed and in the revealing it just might be what is needed...not that we like it all but My belief is there's something bigger then us all and it governs us...As this all passes more understand will come, right now it's just a big ugly hurt...No details just part of my walking morning.

from a comment of a new dear reader...Linda
I was surprised and yet not so surprised to see you admit today to feeling "bored". I recently discovered your blog and spent several mornings reading it from current archive to present. Could it be that you have expended so much energy marketing and defining yourself as "artist" ("living the life", "walking the walk", "talking the talk") that you have actually lost your true creative self? Could it be that you have been so focused on the"to do" lists, the production of product, the role playing "artist", that you have lost the passion, excitement and joy that comes from simply the "process" of creating, exploring, and playing with your medium?

And I re post the response from yesterday's blog post to this one..because I feel these are some really good question...And I ask am I doing way to much?  Sure probably I am...no doubt, I've heard it said in my little family here many times..."mom you always working on something."  I am...I rest in motion, I rest as I walk...I rest in motion and always have...knowing yourself and still questioning direction is not a bad thing it's something that I think human being do..well ones that are on a more creative path then most. I have to remember this is a gift and when one is given a gift it's to be used and shared...Now my gift is nothing more or less special then any one Else's gift but it's a gift for me to work with.  I continually do my check up work on my self and bring this question up and see what I get...kind of like putting it all out there asking for help on what would be the next best thing to do...

I honestly don't like some curtain aspects of this job...But what job or life's purpose is perfect and well liked all the way through? Oh I can be glib about a lot of things but having art receptions for exhibits I cringe and have inner turmoil. The Hauling of art regalia to shows and art fairs is getting to much...I've hurt my back not terrible but there's a pain every once in a while...and dealing with the stress of the weather when doing the out door art fairs these last few years and with Menopause has me question...yes question what direction shall I take..what's the next best thing to do.

I don't understand maintaining a collection of work that has not sold, that may have been "around" for sometime, that may have no personal significance to you or relevance to the present. Why expend more effort, energies on the past?

Very good question why am I putting effort in to all this artwork that I've made that is taking up closests, hall way space and more closets up stairs?  Early on when I decided to create while being a stay at home mother I purchase books on learning how to do it, how to sell your art or craft and what steps you need to do...I've not followed them to the tea and in some areas I've gone off on my own things...but I was prolific with my work...I had the time,  paper of all kinds was my source I feed a creative obsession..Heck I could during the day between raising kids, laundry, shopping and writing bills I was cutting up cat tail leaves and drying them out so I could cook them up and later on another day make hand made papers which lead into the whole recycling things and the famous question keeps popping up..." What if I did this?  What would happens?  and with the creative Gene's of Lein side of and the Riha side I began to busted at the seams and I was on a mission to create and then I had work around the house stacks of it and took a class at a community college on marketing you art and leaned more and in that class a woman loved my work and had a boy friend out west there and wanted to buy some of my work and send it to him...with in a week I was driving to her home and having an Art exhibit out of the back of my family Van and sold a lot of work that day.. And I've not stopped since and I have good works from time passed..that when I pull them out people are still amazed by then and want to learn how to do it...so that I feel leads me in a different direction of teaching.. show how to do it.  But I've not answered Linda's question... Why put all that effort into the old stuff and trying to sell it is what I'm hearing her ask..  Should one toss this work out...give it away...what does that do to the value of the other pieces coming out of me now...?  I intermingle the older works with the new works all the time when showing my art in an exhibit or at an art fair and the response is amazing when someone sees an older piece...they don't know it's older...and some times I have a few sells of those older pieces...I've heard it many take 10 years for the right amount of people to see your work before it finds the right person... 


Why must you complete the two 36 x 36 canvases remaining of the twelve you assigned yourself to do? Why must you persist with Tack Down Tuesdays? You said that you are feeling "bored". I believe that if you are feeling bored with the tasks and role that you have assigned yourself you will produce product that is boring, passionless.

You could be right...but along the way things happens...as I push myself and assign myself these challenges to create a body of work..though I may get bored with it I am also learn about myself as an artist and human being..something I truly believe happens to us because we stick to our word and make it to the other side...we give ourselves the gift of accomplishment, something that can't be handed to you..it's something that the one person has to do themselves and see through..

The big canvases are something I've always wanted to do and maybe even cursing myself now by saying I would even like to do a few more bigger then that..I've grown to this point over 15 years...and no one can take that way from me and what's tyed to it, is a state of mine one can get when they are trying to meet a inner silent goal of theirs...I will doubt myself and sometimes fall apart only to pick up the pieces that I truly need and discard the ones I don't...and this maybe one of those times..I can't tell right now...till it all passes.  As for the Tack Down Tuesday's...I could just stop at the end of this year...but I have boxes left and I don't want to waste the good money I invested in them so I'm seeking guidance from the big man upstairs again  on what will be next.
Passionless....yes there are moment when passion has left the stage but most of the time I can be lost so easily in it while I create that once I put my apron on I begin to allow the flow to come in..tradition or ritual it's still there some days not as strong as other but I feel the gift flowing through.


Your list of "dreams or whims" is not what I feel to be the answer you may be seeking. In fact if you re-read your blog and "listen closely" to your words you will hear your very own response to what you propose.

Linda I never read my past blogs...I journal write every morning and I don't even re read them.. I'm so thankful at this point you send your response to my blog...You've brought up some very good points of interest and My purpose I've felt is to inspires other to seek their passion to stick with something to see where it will go before you give up..and long the way life will be life and give you some wonderful lessons to learn from.. I will need to be a walker and morning journal writer for my own personal balance...I know what works...the rest of the stuff I kind of throw up in the air now and then like yesterday and see what comes down first...and what the answer was yesterday was to be just be and not worry about it, more will be revealed.  My dream is strong...a vision of me in a old Chevy pick up trunk driving to the art studio, getting out shutting the rusty old door as I watch my four legged misfits run around and I look out over the distance to see trees, meadows and sounds of nature all around me..I unlock the door of the shatty shack of a studio and start a fire in the wood burner and take my coat off and put my apron on and step back and look at my next big piece...and when the day is done I'm wrapping up a piece and loading in the pick up trunk to take to the homestead for the trip inyo town for the next day's shipping to a gallery..Now if this ever happens I really don't care...the dream is alive in me now and it's what I carry along till it comes true...

Thank you Linda for asking this questions..it's brought a stronger and more grounding acceptance in myself. I still won't read my blog but will seek what is ahead...and trust in that..I'll be teaching soon enough and looking for inspiration on the next steps to take.


Respectfully, Linda

You sent a gift without even know it..
bless your journey...Linda.

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