Your Courageous Life

Your Life Speaks

A few years ago, I wanted–really desired–to be a working visual artist. I’d gotten back into painting, really loved it, and had had some minor success with some local art shows while working part-time as a teacher. Why not make the leap? I decided. I loved writing, painting, coaching, and photography. Why not make them all work?

I took a leave of absence from teaching and spent the next several months struggling with the newfound pressure that I had created in my life. Painting stopped being the thing that balanced out the stress that came up with teaching, and instead became the thing that was another source of stress.

I hadn’t realized when I’d decided I’d start really trying to sell my work that it required so many things–like a marketing plan. I spent all of this time pouring over books at the library, pulling together portfolios, CDs with high quality copies of my images, cover letters. I submitted my work to greeting card companies and I contacted galleries. The galleries were not at all interested. I did manage to get a few small shows at local coffee shops. This was really gratifying–and a lot of hard work. There was the work of creating 15-20 pieces (depending on size; lots of large pieces = fewer of them) and there were deadlines. While waiting to be brought to the show, the pieces needed somewhere to live, so this took up quite a bit of storage space. When it was time for the show to actually happen, usually the owners wanted us to come by close to closing time–10pm, 11pm, or right when they were opening. Then there was the physical work of hanging the pieces themselves. Add in the publicity of the opening night, the awkwardness of standing around when few people showed up (oh, my). Depending on the place, the owner of the coffee shop either monitored sales (and took their cut) or I handled the phone calls and inquiries; it really depended on the shop. When something sold, the owner usually requested that I create a piece to hang in its place.

When it was all over, anything that hadn’t sold needed to be taken down, brought back to the house, and stored.

Now, I do realize that some people might read this description and think, “Uh, what’s the problem?” Maybe it sounds really exciting to them.

Those people, I think, are the people who are far more aligned with doing the work of being a visual artist, than I am!

The thing is, I just really like to paint. I like to get messy with glue. I like to play around with color. I fell into showing or selling my work by accident–either someone made a request for a print online or I was asked to be part of a show. Things sort of went from there. I didn’t actually like doing the marketing, the pressure to create so much work at once, fielding phone calls from shows. I liked the creative part, and I really liked it when people would meet with me to collect their piece–it was so fun to see where something was going.

But that’s it.

So since that time, I’ve mostly been creating in a haphazard way. The biggest hurdle for me has been: “What’s the point?”

What’s the point of creating something that will just sit in my house? What’s the point of spending all of that money and time? What’s the point of making something no one is ever going to see?

That’s the inner critic that comes up, but something fiercer and stronger inside knows: the point is the point.

The point is just to make a point of getting messy.

The point is to play.

The point is to create simply because it feels good to create.

Why would I need to make myself wait for something more than that?

A new group of Across Mediums peeps will be beginning their journey this weekend. I’ve been tweaking the course since last time around, adding in bits and bringing more of that emotional component to it–what are our barriers to just creating for the sake of creating? Where do we use “what’s the point” as an excuse to back down?

Anyone else with me, here, on this “What’s the point?” feeling? I feel that I’ve really gotten over a lot of that by diving in and having fun–by practicing that simply by walking into creating, I see clearly what the point is. How about you?

Related posts:

• Stop the Job Suckage: Day Eight
• an experiment in radical creativity

This entry was posted on Friday, April 30th, 2010 at 5:00 am |