Flower Paintings

I've been working on these paintings off and on for three months now. They're taking me forever, mostly because I'm tired of painting so tightly. I'll turn them into something pretty and feminine when I'm finished.

I am not annihilated.

"Artists don't get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working."

- Stephen DeStaebler

I am ready to get back to work. This past year, I haven't made as much art as I've wanted to. Even with ample time, I just couldn't/can't make myself sit down and make art like I used to. I get sucked into chores and other projects. I put it off. I'm afraid to start. Where did all my discipline go? Where did all my confidence and creativity go? I've never faced anxiety like this before. It's crippling!

I often feel like this.

Normandie Luscher

I imagine lots of sharp teeth.

Sketchbook drawing, 7/09/13

I told my friend Andrew Ballsteadt about it because I feel like he deals with similar themes in his imagery of monsters.

I also talked with Hannah Mortensen, who is also an artist and dear friend, about all this post-college anxiety. We've concluded, that a lull in art making is probably normal after just graduating and getting married. The two primary reasons being 1. We've just lost a steady support network of peers and professors, which fueled our drive to create. Outside of school, we are not necessarily encouraged by an atmosphere of ambition.  2. Priorities shifted, and we are adjusting to a new lives and new identities as wives.

Not only has my identity been challenged by graduation ("I am no longer the student. I am the teacher.") and marriage ("I am me, but I am also us'"), it has been shaken by my definition of "I am an artist." When my productivity began to lull and pause, I began to believe I was not longer a 'real' artist.

 "Consider that if artist equals self, then when (inevitably) you make flawed art, you are a flawed person, and when (worse yet) you make no art, you are no personal at all!" 

(David Bayles and Ted Orland, Art and Fear pg. 7).

Now, I know, I know, "no excuses" is what others might say. Whatever my fault (perfectionism, laziness, fear, etc.), I have to change my attitude with which I approach art making. It has transformed into an ugly, stressful, guilt-inducing burden, and it shouldn't be that way. I should love making art! I love art. Art is fun. Art is nourishing.

For anyone else, who may be struggling with similar anxieties, I highly recommend Art and Fear, and I personally would like to read Living and Sustaining a Creative Life.