Picking Myself Back Up Again!

It’s pretty amazing how much of our time as artists is what, to the outside viewer, is staring into space!  It seems as if we’re wasting away our time doing absolutely nothing, when, in fact, we’re deep in the thought processes of creating, mentally developing options and alternatives or perhaps, internally visualizing an entirely new piece, the next in a series.  But to the person who’s just walking by your studio…well, they simply see you idling away the day.

Sometimes you walk into the studio and things move along fairly smoothly and you might even complete a small piece in a day, but most often, it involves many restarts after faltering toward the finish with numerous rip outs and revisions, occasionally completely starting over. I have a number of pieces just laying about waiting for me to take another look at them before I know what the next step is, or until I declare it finished. Sometimes I just grow weary of the difficulties I’ve run into and need to set it aside awhile before I feel something move internally and I’m motivated to take hold of the piece again.

Of course, along with all the stumbling I can feel devoid of talent and consider throwing in the towel altogether and I freely kick myself around with all kinds of negative self talk!  But I know I’m not alone in this process of try, fail, pick myself up and try again!  It’s been going on since the beginning of time and I know there is no success without failure and eventually this thought, along with some serious willpower, pulls me of the throes of feeling inadequate.  It helps me to change the game when this happens and usually it means grabbing my camera and getting outdoors to breathe in the fresh air and get moving physically before I can renew my art activity. So, here I’ll share with you some of the results of my photo jaunts that get my juices flowing again!