Art Time

I just started doing The Artist's Way with my husband Lance and my friend Ann. I resisted doing this book for a long time. When I had my old blog, it seemed like everyone in the blogosphere was doing it, and sometimes I get a little rebellious streak in me that screams, "I don't want to do that because everyone is doing it." Yeah, well, lesson learned.

I picked it up at a used book store thinking it would enhance my photography and teaching. I was cocky about it, thinking I already knew a lot of what it was going to say and what it could do for me. I was in for quite a ride that first night I sat down to read it.

What struck the deepest chord was the idea of "shadow artists." Basically, shadow artists are people who have tons of artist friends so they can live vicariously through them. But shadow artists never do their own art. At first I thought, "Well, I do art through photography, so this isn't talking about me." Then I read the section a second time and my emotions went wonky.

I looked at my life and a bizarre trend arose. My husband is an artist. All of my friends are artists, either professionally or as a hobby, with two exceptions. My mother-in-law is an artist. My grandma and my aunt are artists -- my aunt runs a craft business with my grandma and she published a book about painting. My brother is an artist. And even more specifically, the type of art most of these people do is painting.

Holy. crap.

Suddenly, I heard a voice shouting inside of me: "I WANT TO PAINT!"

It took me by complete surprise. I started to cry. The world flipped upside down. I was completely discombobulated for a few days. Damn that Julia Cameron! How did she know?

When I calmed down a bit, I realized I've tried to let this feeling come out a few times before, but Fear always got in the way and told me what I'd done was "nothing." I have a pair of wine glasses I painted that I'm really happy with. Three years ago Lance gave me oil painting lessons. He had me check out this book from the library and I practiced drawing. One year we made our own Christmas cards. And this summer, Lance showed me how to paint with watercolors.

But I didn't count any of this as real art, even though it was. I couldn't allow the artist in me to come out. But I'm done with all of that bullshit. For good.

Yesterday Ann came over for art time. We played around and I had the best time feeling the paintbrush in my hands and letting the work flow out of me. It is so freeing and messy and glorious. How could I ever have denied myself this?

Here's what emerged from yesterday's art time. I can't believe how happy I am with it. I seem to be able to silence the critic in me now and I can appreciate the beauty in what I've created.

I am incredibly happy to be able to chronicle this in this blog, because I have a feeling this is the beginning of something big. I'm not going to put a label on it or even try to shape it into anything this time. I'm just going to let the art happen. But it is going to be so great to have a record of the precise time when it started, because I'm sure, when I'm on my 500th painting, I'll look back and say, "I wonder when all this started." And now I'll know.

As a final note, I want to send out a sincere THANK YOU to all the artists in my life who have brought me to this point, especially Penelope, Christine, Christine, Shelley, Kate, Lance, Susan, Ann, Kelly, Grandma, Eileen, and Brett. You have done more for me than you will ever know and I am utterly grateful.