Pastoral

Barriers to Creativity

It is Sunday morning and I am not doing art. I want to do art but I am stuck in the place where I am caught between dreaming and just doing. This happens a lot to me when I get around someone whose work is very tight and perfectionist. I, either want to compete or I start to think of my work as inferior. Why is that? Does this come from having a competitive nature or from having training from a perfectionist in my past?  I believe this is why many people don’t create art. And I would like to see that I personally can overcome this in my life.

I love to create pieces that look just like things that I see. However, one of the reasons, that I moved from creating art for competition was because I never felt that I was good enough. I always had someone whose work was brighter, more realistic, or caught the colors just right. Then I started to explore creating art for art’s sake. The freeing aspect of letting the process flow out of me and not into a product offers a powerful component to creativity. I realize that I am not able to show most of these pieces to the average Jane or Joe. They are not able to get past the image that they are seeing. They might be saying, “What is that?”or “Why would you want to waste your time on that?” But then I remember the feeling of just letting go and enjoying the process of creation. The freeing nature provides me inspiration to go back and do pieces that are more about exploring what I am seeing.

Understanding the creativity connection helps to bridge the way I see, think and feel. If I am not able to process my work on an intellectual level I might have to create on  the kinesthetic/ sensory level to remove the barrier of creativity to that level in my brain. Therefore, I think I might go to and just do some art. I will let you know how it works out later.

Hello world!

Okay. It is 2011 and here I am in TX with a new life. I have been offered a clean page. This does not say that it is all going to be easy. I am saying goodbye to a big part of my life. My friends and family in Brown County are all going to be missed. I will especially miss my view of the pond and my cats. They are in good hands and I know that they would not want to join me in this adventure.

Anyway, here I am with a clean slate and I want to make this journey about my ups and downs using my art as therapy. Art has always been one of my ways to keep control of what is going on around me, so it is a natural. I journal visually and believe that drawing, painting, collaging each day will help me to explore the transitions.

I have been working on keeping Mandalas for the past year and have tried to make a Mandala each day or two to help me confront my fears of this journey. Bear with me as I work through this journey and my writing. I do not know who and how this will be viewed but it is a start.