A conversation with another artist the other day… and I realize so many of us are wrestling with the same things. How to make a go of it, how to make it truly successful. And on and on.

And yet, here I sit, halfway through an unexpected solo show, and with art sales every month since last December, wondering and worrying how I can make it work!  My mind goes to worry instead of gratitude.  I have never before sold any paintings in December or January.  Those are just not good months for artists generally. Yet in the middle of a pandemic, it happened.  And it continues to happen.

Through these months of being stuck at home, I have been painting, have stopped painting, have considered giving it up completely, have walked away, and with trepidation have tip-toed back.  I have cursed this gift and shed too many tears over it.  I have tried to divorce myself from it, but it does not leave me alone. The frustration about it all has mirrored everything that has happened for so many of us in 2020. 

And now, the painting has led me onto a new tangent, something more abstract.  I never know if it’s going to produce something I’ll want to build on or if I’m going to scrap it, but the whole situation of the last year, in life and in work, has brought me to this point. So maybe the whole point is to just go with it. If I mess it up, it’s not the end, I can try again, I can try something else, I can explore! 

And isn’t that the whole point of being an artist? To explore, to push boundaries, most of which are found within myself, to express the inexpressible. And this may very well be our purpose as artists, to express something to the world that resonates, that in some small way helps others to see bits of a larger vision.  It doesn’t make me special really, it just means I have to be willing to feel my way in the dark, to find some light, and to find a way to share the discovery.

My hope has always been that the art I create would do something for others, even if I can’t quite articulate what that is.  Even if I don’t always know what it does for someone, or if it does something for them that I didn’t expect.  I just know I have to keep going.  Creating the visual means putting something on paper that possibly can’t be expressed in words.  So, if I don’t do it, is there something left unsaid that was supposed to be said?

I would love my work to provide the living I’ve always wanted, but if it doesn’t that doesn’t mean it’s not doing what it’s supposed to do.  The vision is obviously a lot larger than what I can see.  If I am a part of that vision, then I need to trust that I am a necessary part of it.  Once again, I must trust the process… put paint to paper and know that something worthwhile is happening.  Something is being said.  Something someone needs to hear.

Read my Latest Watercolour Blog Titled Not Seeing Means Believing..