i’ve been working in bits and spurts all week to get my studio cleaned and organized. it really was past that awful point of “i-just-can’t-ignore-it-any-longer”. and i’m happy to report that i am pretty much done (how cleaning such a small space takes so forever is beyond me)!
but one thing i was hoping to find under all that mess, i didn’t. find it, that is.
you see, i have boxed up some things, well, not just things...should i let you have a peek?
i boxed up and put away my recent artwork. it was either this, or trash them (i don’t know if i would have really, actually trashed them, but it was how i was feeling this week) and encouragement and wisdom from friends won out, so i have put them out of my sight for now. does this happen to any of you?
one day you are in love--love i tell you, with the things you make. things feel as if they are coming together (and i mean finally coming together) and then the next moment--WHAMMO! the “feeling” is gone. all of a sudden norbert (uh...norbert is the name of my troll, or gremlin if you will) has won out, or maybe it isn’t even norbert, maybe it’s just reality setting in and in any case, it is all no good any more.
i have been here so many times in my art life i can’t even tell you the stacks of canvases and boards and watercolor paper i have hidden away. why i stop myself i don’t know--i mean, beyond the usual fear, etc. except to say, the overriding feeling i get is that this isn’t the way...it all feels wrong somehow, so i stop and change course, which in a way is fine (listening to my intuition and all that), but at the same time this is honestly getting me nowhere and taking years to get there.
so, part of the cleaning was really, truly, that the studio needed cleaning. the other part of it was (and is) mental; i was hoping to find myself, something recognizable in here, some seed of inspiration to move forward.
i need to choose. i need to exercise my God-given free will and make some choices and then stick with them and follow through, through the fear, past the doubts and straight towards my future. and oh, how i want to...i am struggling these days.
and that’s what i was hoping to find in the studio.
