Monday, January 8, 2018

The Winding Road of Art


"As I write I create myself again and again." ~ Joy Harjo

"...there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and singing, made." ~ Wallace Stevens


"Any woodthrush shows it- he sings,
not to fill the world, but because he is filled." ~ Jane Hirshfield, "The Stone of Heaven"


Here it is a new sparkling year: 2018 has arrived. Single-digit temperatures in the mountains combined with weeks of a Christmas 'gift' virus kept me from painting. The most I've done is pick up charcoal and sketch horses into a landscape, a welcome reprieve into 'my world' as I call it. I *had* to do something! For sculpture, I've put the large figure I'm working on outside on the back porch to 'weather' a bit more. Let's face it, winter is never my favorite season, nor the easiest to survive in an old house: the basement pipes have created a skating rink of ice...so today, it's wait-for-a-plumber-and-pray time. In between all this, I've been reflecting (new years bring a clean slate and self examination time).

It's time to consider the road ahead (this is something I ponder every year at this time!)...literally and figuratively. Is my work any good? Am I being true to self always? Where is it (and am I) going? Where do I belong in this world? How do I balance the ingrained need to create versus survival? Age-old questions for most serious artists. It is my belief that this broken world needs art to mend our beings, our very souls. To bring light into darkness: both for the artist who creates it, and for those who see/read/hear/feel it. Art is life. It is to me--over this brutal winter, I've wondered if I should go back to the workforce world in order to make my tattered ends meet: if it hadn't been for angels among us, I would have fallen down, hard. Yet, time and time again, they have come when I needed them most. And, the wood thrush's bell-clear answer came: you are doing what you should, and must. While you are here on this earth. Keep believing. Don't give up. Sing. Be filled. Create yourself again and again....

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