Being an artist is for me first
‘An Opening’, work in progress. Here’s the latest on this piece. It’s nearly there! Acrylic on wood, 10”x10”
As I’ve stepped back into having an art studio and painting again, I’ve updated and become more conscious about what being an artist means to me.
I took a break from painting in 2010, putting all of my energy into creating my psychic business, teaching classes, working with clients, and focusing on my writing. I’d been feeling the need for a while to step away from producing art the way I’d done in the past, and I wanted to build this aspect of my business, so it was an easy choice.
I didn’t miss making art for a while, I was always creating something but didn’t have a studio. But I started longing to paint again in about 2018, something was waking up inside me, and I wanted art supplies! When I stopped painting, I gave away a lot of my paints and anything that had a shelf life, to a few friends who painted. But I still had colored pencils and a lot of sketchbooks, and so I bought some more of those.
Then 2020 arrived, along with a worldwide pandemic. What a perfect time to make art again! I didn’t have a studio, but I did have enough space at my dining room table to make small watercolor and gouache paintings, and mixed media pieces including colored pencils. It was so fun picking up these tools again, and it felt amazing to be back playing with color on paper!
‘Dancer’ 2023; current work in progress. Acrylic on wood, 10”x10”.
I fully trust at a deep level that I am a creator, and have always been so.
As I stepped back into making paintings, I decided to update my reasons for making them. I realized that one of the reasons why it was so easy to stop painting in early 2010 was that it had ceased being fun for me. I knew that I’d put a lot of pressure on myself for my art to be a certain way, to have it fill in something for me that I needed to do myself. I needed it to be something it wasn’t going to be.
What I decided when I started making art again was that it was going to be fun for me, first and foremost. If it’s not fun for me, I won’t want to do it.
‘Heart’ 2023, work in progress, 10”x10”, acrylic on wood
So I had to make a few new agreements with myself.
I promised me that I’d allow myself to experiment and have more fun with my work, more ease and play. Sometimes I feel a pressure to control how long it’s going to take me to complete a piece, and that never works. Play is the antidote to pressure.
I need to remember that painting, and art making, is first and foremost for me. Because I post my work and write about making art, I sometimes get caught up in ‘putting on a good show’. When the best show of all is just showing up and being.
It’s perfectly fine to experiment and even make a bunch of ugly art! I feel like I’m in between finding my new way of painting, it’s coming, and I know it will get here. And then one day it will change again, because I will have learned all that I need to know about doing it that way. And then a new cycle will begin again, and so on.
I promised myself that the opinions of other people do not matter one bit when it comes to how I feel about my own art. In other words, I don’t need praise and approval to make my art. It’s for me.
The pieces I’ve posted here are nearly complete. I started all of them almost a year ago, while living in Portland OR. I worked at my dining room table then as I didn’t have a dedicated studio yet, and I knew we’d be leaving that place soon anyway. So these 4 paintings have been through quite a few changes with me, including a move across the country, and now they are starting to show up. I’m really happy with these so far - they are the first paintings on wood that I’ve made.
‘Tower’ 2023, work in progress, 10” x 10”, acrylic on wood
