Ideas and Inspirations

Ideas and inspirations come from the strangest places and sometime they're the same entity. Many, many, many times (daily) I hit the wall (that is, I experience a loss of mental energy) with a painting or an idea and put it aside, though not out of sight. Then I begin the process of "beat Ida up" and make accusations, "Aw…I'm a quitter. Or, why can't I finish what I start."

Then who always pops into my head but Thomas Edison who, when talking to fellow scientists about electricity, realized how much further ahead he was because of his experimental failures. He knew what didn't work.

However, I expect to draw inspiration from my painting or any such project. The experience of flow keeps me returning until I'm done. I struggle, but each day I walk away with a little something that will bring me back. Occasionally, on a painting that I applied two layers of paint—is stunning. Now I'm stuck because I don't want to ruin what I have. I become timid and a timid artist may as well curl up and die.

It's always about emotions. And I know my emotions lie to me. They lie to me from the moment I get up in the morning until I go to bed at night. Two separate times in my life I went through therapy and therapy taught me to channel these feelings; that sometime emotions are my best friend.

I believe my emotions lead to a crisis to test me; like pesky little stepping stones measuring who and where I am. Early in my career, during one of those many tests I decided to stop pursuing art/painting. An art teacher of mine once said, "Never throw anything of yours out because one day you'll think it was the best you've done." THAT has never happened. Instead, I began to gather all my saved work to toss them. Only an idiot would keep reminders of former failures when there are many waiting in the future.

Pile upon pile, they were all going to the dumpster. Until I found my first serious drawing and it was "bad." My eight-year-old niece drew better than I did. It was a graphite drawing of water skiers. The figures were a step above stick people, the waves were sharp points ready to decapitate any skier, and I was 24-years-old at the time I made the drawing. I saw how far I had come.

Whoa… I took that drawing, framed it, and it hangs in my studio today. That first horrible drawing inspired me to continue. It and my emotional crisis showed me where I had been and where I am.

If you get fewer than 2,000 rejections a year, you are not working hard enough.