Category: Creativity

Let me tell you a story. A friend of mine who is an artist was having pretty good success in her field for several years. She kept winning awards at all the art shows and she was selling on a pretty regular basis. A small art festival was happening in her area so she decided to have a booth. She set up and the day did not turn up any sales. It as disappointing to say the least. However one person saw her at that little art show and approached her about representing her work in his gallery.

That one connection changed her life. She went from small potatoes to big ones almost overnight. She made 30 thousand dollars in one year from him selling her work. 30 thousand was just her cut so he sold 60 thousand dollars worth of work in one year. I am telling you this story because sometimes we cannot see value in what we are doing — right away. Sometimes we think it is a waste of time. But you never know, somebody may find you because you have your work in a restaurant and they may be a broker and they might have been looking for someone like you all their lives.

It is always a thrill to create anything. it is so much better than just thinking about doing it. Even if you do something that is subpar”who cares?” it is not the end of the world.
it is the beginning of the world.
Ha that is what just doing it is about. Even if you do a mud mess when it should have been a painting,,, get up brush yourself off and start again.
The depression comes when you finish , so never never finish any project. Make it a big project so it will take a lifetime to get done.
My husband and I have a little house that is a rental and we were making plans for fixing it up more than it already is .
Way more. We want to turn it into a jewel box complete with diamonds and emeralds. IL have never seen a house with this, so now is the time to do the front door all jewels. What a delight to come home to a jewel encrusted front door.

also I want to paint it deep purple and plant a lavender farm in the front yard.
We like to plan. It is more fun than not planning.
You only live once. be outrageous because what is the alternative. not be outrageous. ug how boring!

You can’t put too much stock in disappointment if you look at the big picture. Sure, things did not work out as planned, but who is to say that that is not the  best thing.

Once, we sold a house and the buyer moved in before it closed.  My husband was in California buying a franchise for a new business because we had all this money from the sale of a house.  The real estate agent said it was a done deal. But in the last hour of the last day, the buyer backed out. The sale on the buyer’s other house fell through, the one they were selling to buy ours, and she no longer could get the house. End of contract.

It was very scary as my husband did the same thing to the franchise seller, too. He had to pull out the last day. So, we had no job and no sale and we did not know what to do. We were pretty much banking on all this going through. Somehow we muddled through.

A year later my husband met a man who did buy the franchise he was going to buy. And it was even in our home town.  The poor man was failing miserably and was basicially losing his shirt as the housing market was starting to plummet. We were so grateful that the sale of our house failed or that would have been us.

You can’t see down the road, A series of events might look bad but in the end be fortunate. You just never know.

Just because one person makes a negative comment about your work does not mean it is bad work. Someone else might love it. One person does not have that much power.

If 50 people say the same thing you might consider what they say. Still, if you believe deep down that some work you have done is good and everyone else says no, you might have to do it anyway.

I was studying a Matisse painting yesterday. It was one he did in 1904. Everything was flat. the table and walls were on the same plane. zero perspective. Yet it is a delightful wonderful painting that everyone treasures now. I can only imagine what it must have been like in 1904 when he did the painting. First he surrounded himself with fellow artists.  That was smart. Artists are mostly encouraging. plus we are starved for something new all the time so they were probably adoring his boldness. But it could have gone another way, with everyone up in arms about his work.

So, there will be times when you will question yourself. It is a terrible job to be an artist and have to think about all these things. Much easier to learn to be a plumber and call it a day. A thing is right or wrong. It works or it doesn’t.

One of my paintings that I sort of questioned at first and not everyone loved was this one. Now I am glad I did not paint over it. Someone did buy it and they love it now , but for a year or so I was considering giving it the ax.

You can’t paint and write at the same time. You can barely draw and talk at the same time.
I have a friend that is a teacher. and she teaches art. she has to draw and paint and point all at the same time.
that is sort of like breathing air and swimming. you have to hold you breath to swim. water is so hard to breath in.
painting is like swimming. you have to hold your breath and words and that whole side of your brain.
so If I had students to teach. I would work in silence. they would work in silence. they have to hear the voice and they cannot hear their own special voice with someone elses voice talking over it.
I do not believe in teaching art. I believe in doing art and letting the chips fall where they will..
I just read a book called”You cannot teach art”. My goodness I totally agree.
This was written by a guy who had a masters in art. He talked of the absurdity of the critique sessions.
With no boundaries who can judge anything.
He said only a very very very small percent of art school students go on the make a living as an artist.
those few that do, would have anyway.
Matisse was better and better the further he got from schooling.
I would teach a class on being an artist though. that is what this blog is about.
This blog is about the invisible thing that you cannot make happen but it does and who knows where it comes from and it is surprising even to the artist. I look at my old paintings and wonder who painted them. I have no idea. the just got born/ How in the world in the world do you TEACH that which is a gift. How do you even talk about it.
this blog is all over the place and is poorly written but then I am writing about what is impossible to translate so you can see my issue.