Sharika Roland

Artists create work from somewhere inside them. Nobody just paints what they are looking at. They always paint what is inside them.
And you can’t hide what is inside you. If you are full of rage that is what will come out. Even if you do a still life.
If you are full of contentment that will come out.
Of course that is true for all art forms.
It is impossible to hide your self from your work.
everyone else can be invisible and just do their job but creatives will always be x-rayed.
I remeber when I painted before my son was born I was full of rage and then after he came on the scene everything went soft around the edges.
Experience alters your work forever/
That is why art therapy works.
bad experiences can be painted out and you can see them and move on. If you see something in front of you you can deal with it. But if it is hidden inside your uncounscious then it will drive you and you won’t know how to find it.
Art is a kind of portal.
that is why everyone should do some kind of expressive thing. You have to know what is in there before you can deal with it.

My mother was asking me why it mattered who did the painting as long as you liked it.
Artists use other artists ideas all the time to jumpstart a new idea. We all need constant feeding of our creativity or we dry up.
I really don’t care if someone likes something I am doing enough to semi copy it. It won’t look like mne when they are through anyway. and it is kind of flattering to think you might help someone else.
But trying to actually forge sombodies work is another thing.
My mother did finally think that even though you could do a really great copy of something , the intellectual ownership is with the original aritst alone.
Even in my own work the hard part is coming up with the new idea. .
When a client asks me to do one like a painting that has already sold I always make it 20 percent different. That way each client gets an original not just a copy.
Here is the rub, copying might be easy but it is not ever as good as the first fruits. My advice is always buy the original.

There are no big things in this world that we have to do. We all have  only little things to do, one at a time and all together it makes a big thing.
All I have to do right now is write one word and then really only one letter at a time. I don’t have to write a book instantly.
All I have to do is pick up one sock and I am beginning to clean the whole house.
The hardest thing is that first little thing.
Once you overcome the first the second is easier and the third practically writes itself.
It is that first step that is the hardest.
In our minds though we have to clean the whole house instantly or do all the taxes or paint a whole new idea . And that equals total anxiety. And avoidance. And running away.

one little thing is all we have to do now and forever.
so with that in mind I think I will start working on that big idea by first making one phone call. That is all I need to do right right right now. That way nothing is really a big project., just a lot of little teeny ones.

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.

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.