Category: Gallery 414

Hello, Dear One,
I hope that you have enjoyed the reprieve from gray skies and welcome rains.
(At least the rains were welcome in my neck of the woods.)

I have been SO busy! Two thousand and forty-eight distractions eating away at my time and vitality.

Two thousand and forty-eight.  A rather specific number.  Did you catch the reference?  If you did I am quite sorry because if you did it is also quite possible that you also have 2048 distractions sucking the brains out of your head.

For those of you who have yet to succumb to the addiction- DON’T!  There is a computer “game” called 2048 Tiles.  A small box in the top right-hand corner of the screen tracks your high score.  The high score sits, in the upper right-hand corner, TAUNTING me!

It is insidious.  Was my high score a fluke?  Luck?  Skill?
If it was skill then – surely – I can do it AGAIN.Go ahead, PROVE that it was more than luck.  “Do BETTER and THEN you can quit.”   Each time I fail to achieve or best my “high score” my ego punches me in the gut and snarls, “IDIOT! Can you NOT do BETTER?”  Sometimes there is only the internal, “Grrrrrrrrrrowl.”

It.

Mocks.

Me.

The “game” is not inherently evil, but it is akin to the Amazon Book Addiction Wraith which perpetually asks, “If you like THIS book, surely you will love THAT book.” (Okay, so the exact wording may be a little off, but if you have ever hit that button to look at that next book, well, my sympathies.)

What does this have to do with art?

Everything.

Forrest, my eldest son, was paid $150 for a t-shirt design: I have not yet begun to procrastinate.

Tree.
Apple.

Truthfully, while Forrest can indeed procrastinate with the best procrastinators, he is, more often than not, laser focused.

Apple.
Tree.

I, too, am capable of both.  World class procrastination and laser focus.  When I had six small children at home there was no time for procrastination.  Twenty hours a week painting and the rest of the time was mommying, homeschool, horses, the occasional friend, and the sacred nap.

Thinking is harder than doing.  With so many precious ones underfoot, all I could do was DO.  There was no time for second-guessing.

Now with only a single middle school daughter at home and there is time to think.  There is time for second-guessing.  Oh, and second-guessing is brutal.  Brutal and paralyzing.

Rather than deal with self-doubt and second-guessing, I self-medicate.  Enter 2048 Tiles.  There are myriad of self-medicating procrastinations available to us all.  The only question is, “Which poison?”

Preparing for Centering Abstraction on the heels of the holidays kept me focused.
Preparing for the DTS show in Dallas kept me focused.

Then I sat down to catch my breath.  Catching one’s breath is a good thing.
Picking up the computer mouse is not a bad thing.
Playing a couple games on the computer is not a bad thing.
Playing more than a couple games…
a.
bad.
thing.

So I stalled out for a few days.  Spun in the breeze like a wind-sock on the end of a pole.  At the end of the pole, spinning in one of our infamous North Texas thunderstorms, I saw the heart of my particular form of procrastination.  Fear.  Fear of “what if?”

What if my parents are right?
I will never amount to anything.  No one will love me.  I will never be good enough.
What if my sister is right?
I am a talentless c#%+.

THIS TIME I was armed.  This time I had answers to the question, “What if….?”
The answer is, “It was never about me.”

This past week I pushed through some procrastinations.  I reworked my artist statement for two different venues.  I applied for a scholarship and asked for a job.  I have not heard about the job – yet- but I did get a magazine cover and the check is in the mail!  There were successes that I pooh-poohed because I “could have…”

I caught myself and I took time to sit back and see that, while I flitting away too much time on the computer, I had actually spent six to eight hours a day painting and writing and following through with responsibilities and possibilities.  I also made it to bed before 1 a.m.   FOUR TIMES this past week- just call me Susie Sunshine!

The last Sunday of the Gallery 414 show included a closing reception and an artist panel discussion about artist journeys and creating the Centering Abstraction exhibition.  The panel discussion took a turn and our fearless leaders, John Hartley and Barbara Koerble, laid down some serious wisdom.  It was the insight that I sincerely needed to hear.   Insight made tangible because I was standing in a gallery space with my work hanging with the other three artists.  So, what if my degrees are in computers and statistics.  I have put in the time and I have studied with master artists.  I am qualified.  I felt something shift.

This week self-doubt wiggled in but armed with a new understanding of where I am in my art journey I wiggled free.  I have plans for next week, but I am holding them loosely.

Art is so weird  Artists are so weird.  What is art?  What makes a person an artist?

Like the proverbial Facebook status: It is complicated.

I will not attempt to answer either question EXCEPT that one knows it when one sees it.  If the art tugs at your heartstrings, it is art.  If it calls to you might need to take it home.  Art in an investment in your soul.

May your heart find joy this week.
Joy in art.
Joy in nature.
Joy in the smile of a stranger.
Joy.

Peace out, Gwen