#4 - Surrender to Creative Cycles

"We've already experienced some hills and valleys."

I've definitely been in some valleys with my creative adventures. I work as a creative person every single day at my job (and have for 25 years) so I gave that as my excuse for not being creative when I got home. And the weekends were too busy with other things. But I'm not using that as an excuse any more. Since my daughter went away to college I started an etsy store and sold at a craft show with my daughter in the fall, then I started taking a metalsmithing class. I plan to continue with it even after this one ends (if you remember I have money to spend on a week long workshop at John Campbell Folk school - can't wait) on top of all this I started to paint once again. So I would say I'm on top of the hill right now in my creative adventures and it's exhilarating.
I would say painting is the main talent that I want to concentrate on right now. And I feel that I'm in an positive cycle right now with that - thanks, in part, to deadlines. First, I had the auction piece to complete and soon after I finished that piece I received an invitation to participate in a juried show. The deadline is very soon - Feb 10th. It's events with deadlines like these that encourage me - keep me focused on completing a piece. So I started a 30 x 24" canvas on Saturday. I wasted a good half of the day just trying to decide "what" to paint. In the end, I just went with my first instinct and that was to try something different for me. I'm painting my daughter's cat, Kodi. We adopted her one year ago as a gift for Taylor's 18th birthday. So I guess it's fitting.
What I'm excited about is the fact that I have the room now (no teenagers playing rock band in my living area) to paint upstairs in the wonderful light of my dining room AND I can keep it set up so that I can paint when I feel like it. To me that's half the battle - having the space to keep the easel and paints out at all times. Of course I can't have guests over for dinner but I rarely do that anyway. So the space is all mine. Nice.


painting in background - Self Portrait with Horse by Taylor age 12