Dissatisfaction
Woke up the other day and looked at the pieces art in progress on my worktable and thought; good grief what am I doing. I was not sure if those works were the result of repetition or trying too hard. Regardless, they obviously were not happening. So I got to thinking about my current dissatisfaction and figured I was in a rut. My work was becoming predictable and I was bored. Being full of the need to create and not wanting to make the same old thing I figured that it was time to banish the fear of using oil paints. The universe kindly shoved my nose into doing just that when I attended a demonstration by a marvelous painter who uses oils who just happened to have one spot left in a class the following week. Thus, the abstract painter who thought the apex of my drawing ability was on a par with 4 year olds doing stick figures, suddenly had a not so bad looking bunch of trees on a canvas, in oil paints!
My very fulfilling journey with creativity has taken me through art history, a demanding 10 year cycle of making black and white photographs, discovering the ethereal nature of pastels and watercolors. Then finally into the no rules genre of mixed media abstracts in acrylic. But, always lurking in the back of my mind was the glaring absence of using oil paints. My nasty self critic kept silently whispering to me through the years that I was not really an artist because I did not produce paintings in oil. This thinking definitely has had a negative effect on my ability to freely express myself in my current media.
I can not fully express the pure joy of feeling those debilitating thoughts finally dissolve into the mists to be gone forever. I am not sure if I will embrace painting in oils as my primary means of expression, I am still working on that. But, I have to say that trying something new that I was apprehensive of and conquering it has been a very liberating experience. I can now create freely in any media and not have any nagging thoughts interrupting the process with loud choruses of it would have been better 'If only I did it in oil'.
Art positively reflects life. We have to stretch ourselves even it is uncomfortable at first. This is true of our bodies, minds and spirits. It is certainly better than living a life filled with woulda, coulda and shoulda's. That is definitely not a life well lived. Existing in a state of lingering dissatisfaction is not an option; and it leads to bad art too.
My very fulfilling journey with creativity has taken me through art history, a demanding 10 year cycle of making black and white photographs, discovering the ethereal nature of pastels and watercolors. Then finally into the no rules genre of mixed media abstracts in acrylic. But, always lurking in the back of my mind was the glaring absence of using oil paints. My nasty self critic kept silently whispering to me through the years that I was not really an artist because I did not produce paintings in oil. This thinking definitely has had a negative effect on my ability to freely express myself in my current media.
I can not fully express the pure joy of feeling those debilitating thoughts finally dissolve into the mists to be gone forever. I am not sure if I will embrace painting in oils as my primary means of expression, I am still working on that. But, I have to say that trying something new that I was apprehensive of and conquering it has been a very liberating experience. I can now create freely in any media and not have any nagging thoughts interrupting the process with loud choruses of it would have been better 'If only I did it in oil'.
Art positively reflects life. We have to stretch ourselves even it is uncomfortable at first. This is true of our bodies, minds and spirits. It is certainly better than living a life filled with woulda, coulda and shoulda's. That is definitely not a life well lived. Existing in a state of lingering dissatisfaction is not an option; and it leads to bad art too.
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Very good stuff.
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