Stephani Stephenson on mon 4 jul 11
mel, i hear what you say about the ocean. i have the same relationship to=
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it. another such thing is the sky. i post a lot of pictures on my Facebo=
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ok
page of sunsets here in SE Arizona. they are magnificent beyond belief.
celestial acrobatics, dances, choruses, thrilling to the sublime. i could=
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not paint them or sculpt them, but i try to experience every single one a=
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nd
i feel the beauty filling my soul every single time: filling the well. a=
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nd
i'll draw from that well for all my endeavors. You do have to remember t=
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o
fill the well and feed your soul, even if the art seedlings that sprout l=
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ook
nothing like the source of inspiration...we are just the soil,( and all
other soil metaphors apply...:)
even so, some artists do go for the big picture and when they succeed in
transmitting even one bit of the beauty , we applaud! you can't help but=
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stand in front of a thomas Moran landscape and not feel the original bea=
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uty
transmitted through canvas, and the same goes for abstract work. If the t=
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une
is carried, even a single strain of the grand opera or concert,large or
small, we celebrate that work.
early on, i was set back on my heels when i went out to try and paint s=
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ome
beautiful scene.it was natural to try to paint the things i loved. what =
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i
did instead was focus on one square foot, or one square yard. Forest duf=
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f,
gravel and rock, bark and moss. i could handle the now abstract ballet o=
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f
texture and pattern and color, and to me , that was enjoyable painting. b=
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ut
that's just me.
people can and do get stymied when they approach the great inspirations =
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and
'fail' to capture them. Ithink one of the enemies of creative experience=
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may not be so much our attempt to do so ,but our perfectionism. i have se=
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en
so many people quit because they cannot do it perfectly .i think part of =
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the
problem is perfectionism embedded in criticism, what we perceive as idea=
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l,
laudable art. i am not judging artists who have seemingly perfected their=
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techniques or work. far from it. we come with all sorts of personalities =
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and
approaches and i say hooray for anyone who is working , whatever their
approach. but when the images of work are consistently so precious, so=
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photographically flawless, the tendency is to give up without really tryi=
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ng.
how many people feel they could never produce work 'as good as' work they=
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admire? i remember in the 80s, the work i saw seemed so pristine, so
technically perfect, it had a stifling effect on me, just like looking a=
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t
the ocean and realizing you could never capture it on canvas. that was th=
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e
look of the day. I had to ignore that work and ignore that voice that to=
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ld
me i wasn't good enough or polished enough, and who knows why, i just kep=
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t
plodding and bashing ahead, (often at the same time.) and in retrospect,
what else would one do? We all have different stories and those of us w=
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ho
work in the same medium can be as different as people can be.
i think the perception has shifted from the ideal of the protean artist,=
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AKA , the artist who barrels through life with creative abandon,(we gener=
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al
use Picasso as the example of this) to the perfectly packaged producer of=
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technically flawless and, sigh, drop dead gorgeous work . it seems to
shift back and forth always in search of a stereotype. of course ,neither=
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of
those polarities describes the work most of us do and the life most of us=
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lead.
this thing is , you just have to get in there and keep making stuff , ke=
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ep
working on your skills, keep filling the well, and do what you can to no=
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t
be afraid to fail, and to find satisfaction with your own humble work. af=
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ter
all, it's between you and the clay, or you and the paint. and ,with a few=
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exceptions, it's ALL grand and humble at the same time!
whether you are an art ant, an art monkey , and art lion or an art beagle=
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,
keep at it , the music is in your muscles as well as your mind!
Ok that's it for my coffee break. happy birthday USA!
Stephani Stephenson
taking advantage of some monsoonal cloud cover to coax some tree seedling=
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s
into the ground. annnnnd making tile.
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