When you are young and have a fire in your belly to be an artist = this is what it looks like. no no nonononononnono.
Something in you says you have to make art and you will make art and the teacher is just a launching pad. that is what teaching should be.
There is the horrible and most present ego of the teacher that is stuck in the middle of the fire and the water.
Young artists cannot help but be wild and curious and wonderful and exhasperating.
I realized the being the teacher is only a mean to an end.
If you are an artist nobody can stop you from doing it because you don’t have any other choice.
The responsiblily of fanning the flame and not dousing water on a tiny flame is immence.
When I was young my parents let me paint my room with the most outrageous things. they just were at a loss as to what to do with me.
Thank goodness for that. Nobody could have prepared them for my belly fire.
I was just thinking that it would have be soul killing if I had been pushed to do art lessons so I would do art right. They did not care what I did if it kept me quiet.
My job as an art teacher is give the students the freedom to do things I don’t like. I have to remember that they are listening to an inner voice that will start screaming if they are tied up in what I want.
I have to remember that it is not about me it is all about them. My only job is to give them wings.
The loss
Sometimes you have a friend that is an instant friend. You meet them and 10 seconds later you feel comfortable with them enough to relax and be yourself because somehow you feel like it is ok with this person to be like that.
When I first met Karen Cartwright she was sitting in her little store that was full of wonderful things. It was nice just to look in the window of the store and it made you want to go in.
She was very friendly to me as she is with most folks but when I told her I was the artist upstairs that did the painting in the hallway she screamed.
I felt like a movie star for one second. Your Sharika Roland??? Well the rest was history. we became fast friends and long friends.
I was just thinking how funny that was back then and how much she became a big part of my life within seconds really.
Now she is moving back to her hometown and I will not text her 50 times a day anymore because she will move on with her life and her day to day with new people.
When you get over a certain age you really don’t make a lot of new friends that you will have forever. It is different.
That is why losing my one second friend is so very hard. The odds of anything like that happening again are not very good.
Here is to girlfriends that help you live and change and see things differently .
I hope you all get to have a Karen experience. I hope you all do.
the zone
when someone is in the zone they lose all awareness of themselves and are totally absorbed in what they are doing. And you are doing it better than you ever have and it seems to be flowing from somewhere else so it is totally effortless.
To get in the zone you have to do all the work of being not in the zone. That is the frustrating thing.
It doesn’t feel like you will ever be in the zone and not only that you feel like the most untalented person on earth. But you remember what it does feel like when you fall into the zone so you plug away. hoping that you will fall down that hole to bliss.
The only way to fall is to keep walking the minefield . Don’t stop moving. staying put you will never find it.
Movement is the main key. Don’t quit and run away scared/ Keep moving. slogging through the muck/.
Right now I am all mucked up but that is ok. I know it is just a matter of time and the pay off is such a euphoric joy that it is worth every last tear, penny, drop of blood, hour of pain that you have to go through. Nothing is even close to how great this feels.
Iota
I am opening a little store in my studio building.
The store is only about 10 feet by 12 feet so it really is a tiny store, but that is the kind I like.
When I leased it three months ago I had a vague idea to sell portraits out of it but now it is morphed into a french themed gallery of handmade and hand loved items. I like the fact that my friends are involved with the creation of iota. They are making this more like a joint venture than a solo show.
Its about them more than me and that suits me just fine.
This is my first retail store.
I am testing my theory that even if you don’t exactly know how to do something you can still go there.
Alice Waters who started Chez Pannisse in Berkeley quite a few years ago just was following a dream. I love the fact that she just hired college students to be chefs and they just made things up as they went.
Nobody went to school first.
Now Chez Panisse is one of the most famous restaurants in America.
I think the older you get the bigger the risks you should take. What is the worse that can happen. You die. And you will do that soon anyway. You might as well give everything a go and see what happens.
The best part of any dream is the inception. When all things might be possible.