I just recently emerged from a 6 month artistic dry spell. Actually it was more like a 6 month trip through the driest, quietest desert I can imagine. I had nothing…no interest in being in my studio (in fact studio avoidance was more like it) and yet for a while I forced myself to go, even if just to do something small, just 10 minutes, I would tell myself, just show up. When that didn’t work I tried taking my studio out into the world, and brought a sketch book to the house, started looking at art books, reading about artists and looking at videos of artists at work. But this just made me feel worse. I avoided my studio and felt guilty for not even being able to do some simple sketching outside or in my house. Crisis!
If I wasn’t going to the studio or even carrying around a sketch book it meant that I wasn’t making any art. And if I wasn’t making any art it made me wonder if I was still an artist. And if I wasn’t an artist then WHAT WAS I? I have identified with being an artist for my entire adult life. The idea of losing who I felt I was sent me into the black hole of a true identity crisis. So what did I do?
One thing I did was I visited other artists and we had conversations about this dry spell, as well as looking at what they were working on. I found that most of them had experienced this at some point, and one of them was even going through it at the same time as I was! It helped me to connect with artists and be assured that indeed I was still one of them. This confirmed to me how important community is.
The other thing I did was clean out my painting studio. I went through every box and emptied every shelf and ended up throwing away or passing on a whole lot of things that were ancient history or no longer relevant to me. It felt so good! I thought that if I cleared out my painting studio I could create space for new energies and ideas.
And lastly I allowed myself this fallow period. Rather than worrying or beating myself up I turned instead to other activities I enjoy. I walked a lot, kayaked, worked in my garden, cooked and baked, visited with friends, hung out with the animals (both domestic and wild) and in general enjoyed the summer. Autumn had me busy with a huge real estate project so I didn't even think about making art during a month of cleaning out and cleaning up a piece of property.
During all this I did visit my studio from time to time, just checking in to say hello, I haven’t forgotten you, I’ll be back. I really wanted to believe that.
And then this happened:
In what felt like an out of the blue experience I started working again on my large scale mixed media pieces. But in actuality this happened after a particularly important visit with an artist I know when I realized two things: First: I can do whatever I want (duh!) and second: I love to make marks, also known as drawing. This was the simple magic that broke the spell.
As an exhibiting artist I was in the habit of creating bodies of work that held together visually or conceptually (or both). I am no longer with a gallery so am free to do what I want. I think possibly it was too freeing, and I froze with the idea that I could do whatever I wanted. But what did I want to do?
So at that particular point in time I just wanted to make marks. So I grabbed my oil pastels and started drawing over a mixed media piece I started months before. And I did it for ME. I wasn’t trying to please anyone but me. No gallery, no clients, no worry about if I was making a body of work that will hold together. I just worked solely for myself. I even let go of the idea that I might exhibit these someday. Just making them for ME.
So that is the tale of my six months in the desert. I am happy to be back at work, enjoying my studio again and even getting excited to visit it and draw more on these large scale works on paper (they are each 44” x 30”). I have also started working in encaustic again but that is another story for a later blog. In the meantime here is one more piece I have done in the last month. Cheers!
