It's officially been a year since I finished taking art classes, and shifted my attention to become a professional painter. However, many things changed in the last year, and here I am surveying what I've accomplished in the last 12 months.
Initially, I was set to paint during the day, and to continue working the evening shift between 3-10 p.m. This changed when I had to pursue a new job, which meant shifting to a 9-5 schedule, and painting after work.
There are some disadvantages to scheduling creative pursuits after a full day of work. One is that I'm already mentally exhausted from the commute, work, and social interactions. Two is that I am also physically exhausted and often find myself making up excuses for why I should not go to the studio. Three is that the studio is very lonely late at night, when everyone else is gone, and I am left alone to my thoughts.
Of course, there are up sides to working late at night. One is that it is quiet and I am left to pursue my creative thoughts. Though usually that ends up making me go to bed very late, since once the mental gates are open, it is difficult to stop. Then there is the advantage of going straight to bed instead of rushing to work after studio time, which brings stresses of its own.
Either way, juggling both creative pursuits while working full time is incredibly difficult. I think, at times, of whether it is possible to do both. While others are working at their craft, I am away devoting my time to other tasks not related to developing my artistic skills. This is why I have decided to start writing my thoughts down, because reflection is what keeps me moving, keeps the water clear in my mental pond, so I can focus on the deeper realms that may emerge one day.
I've been reading Rilke lately, and his words really soothe me and echo within. He talks about creativity as if it is a life force, like the sap of a tree that cannot be forced out. It is something I struggle with constantly, battling my fears of inadequacy while trying to nurture my creativity. Sometimes it seems that the mundane tasks of everyday life will simply swallow up any creative energy I have, and transform it into routine action that amount to nothing.
At times I do glimpse the far glimmer of something that is eternal. When I am able to sketch something down. When I am able to capture some sort of beauty. But other times I am so overwhelmed with the idea of creating "good art" I find myself unable to do anything.
Currently, I am working on an ecorche sculpture, in the hopes of learning more about anatomy. But it has been a slow process, and I think it may actually be blocking me from doing other work, since the clay is alternately too wet or too dry to work with.
I'm not sure as to what I want to paint next. I had resolved not to paint still lifes that have no symbolic meaning back when I finished school. But now I wonder if that's perhaps a bad decision, since painting of any sort is a form of practice and creative expression. I do notice that my creativity runs in waves. Usually I must ride the wave for as long as it lasts before I give up and do something else. Struggling to ride the dying wave is silly, in that I cannot find the same spark to continue the same level of intensity I felt when the creativity was flowing.
So therein lies the question - whether creativity is something that can be nurtured and coaxed into blossom like a sapling. Whether all the small things I do matter in the long run.
Lately, I have been getting back into fitness. Tracking my food intake and working out. Every little bit counts. So maybe this is the same for creativity. These little bits that I do add up to something bigger, to a future I cannot yet picture, but will march toward simply in the act of trying.
Someday I will look back a these early days of my artistic journey and find my pain darkly comical. For by then I would have seen even more trials and tribulation and be even more aware of all of the seeming impossibilities that prevent me from accessing my potential. But for now this struggle is very real, and it is difficult to find humorous. In writing this, I am letting it out a little at a time, like a slow poison being cleansed from my blood stream. Waiting for yet another evening of solitude in my studio... trying to reach something that is unreachable.
