Posted by shortelise on August 11, 2004, at 1:43:17
In reply to i AM an artist » Angela2, posted by octopusprime on August 11, 2004, at 0:18:07
I am for sure an artist. My hands do things, make things, and I can't stop them. I get an idea, and voila, there I am in my garden with cement and little rocks, or at my sewing machine, or in the kitchen, or in the garage covered in paint ...
Being an artist isn't about anything but making, creating. You can make art with rocks at the seaside, you can make it with mud on paper (a friend of mine has done some extraordinary paintings using different kinds of earth as her medium!).
And if you make bad art ... well, welcome to the club - everyone makes bad art sometimes, esp, when we're learning to express our creativity - like some meals just don't turn out, or an idea is bad.
What makes ME an artist is, I think, that I can't NOT create. About ten years ago, a very wise person told me that she thinks that it can make a creative person crazy if they don't create. She was so right for me. When I am unable to do things with my head and hands, when I have to keep those creative urges caged, I am not well. I need to make things, need to put colours together, or textures, or make a tiny house from stones (that's my latest hunger).
I had a dream a few years ago about a big blue swan. Or was it a goose? I don't remember, but I felt this urge, no, a complusion, to paint this big bird. It was the WORST painting, I mean horrible, huge and of a blue that should never have seen the light. I don't know if there is any analysis to be had there, but oh, dear, what a BAD painting!
I feel really strongly about this, mostly because it was so late in life that I finally understood that I simply cannot, must not, thwart the urge to create.
Sorry this is so much about "me" but I don't know you. If you feel the need to create, to make things, maybe a little bit like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters :-) then do it. Go to a dollar store and buy some cheapo stinko paints, go to your local Goodwill store. Have fun with it.
This makes me think - it is so important for us tohave a sense of who we are, when in fact so many of us are still connecting the dots, filling in the blanks, colouring in and around the lines. It's wonderful in a way,. because we are not imprisoned by our definition of ourselves. I imagine you with yor pencil in hand, looking around in your soul to see what of it will come out of the end of that pencil. That's a thing of beauty - that even if you won't spend the rest of your life in the pursuit of art, you have a side that likes to create, and you explore it.
Sorry I have rambled so long. I hope this is of some interest.
ShortE
poster:shortelise
thread:376016
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040805/msgs/376289.html