above all else

“Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that's why I make works of art." - Felix Gonzalez-Torres

So! The past few weeks have had their share of bumps and roadblocks. Several exciting and important client projects were shelved, travel was postponed, expensive technological glitches and breakdowns happened all over the place. Wedding planning isn't quite what I expected it would be. I stumbled upon yet another art copycat which always throws me off for a few days… how do you tell someone, kindly, to stop imitating your work? Four snowstorms in a row left our neighborhood buried and gridlocked for days, and in the middle of the last blizzard, Chubby Boots suddenly became very ill, barely moving and refusing to eat or drink at all. It was so scary. He had to be bottle-fed until we could get a vet appointment the next day, at which time my car wouldn't start -- just one of many signs that it's at the end of its time.

Thankfully, CB is back to his normal healthy self, and I'm aware that everything else is totally insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it just felt like one thing after another and kind of overwhelmed me. I have trouble channelling creativity energy when I'm feeling sad or upset or frustrated and all these bumps in the road were swirling around my brain and heavily affecting my work. I don't know. Any artists out there ever feel this way? Like it's hard to function creatively when bad energy abounds in other areas?

So I made an effort to take this rough month full circle, I guess, and shift my focus away from all the distractions and letdowns and extraneous non-creative parts of being a working artist and back to the very most basic part of my "road," which is just making art. Painting. I put everything else on hold and just painted, spending 8-9 daylight hours working on new pieces -- paintings I wanted to make -- and sketching or priming canvases in the evening. 

We spent a lot of time with our friends and went on a few fun excursions, but most of the last month was work. At one point I had four large paintings going at once and was hopping from painting to painting each time one had a drying period or the inspiration struck. It felt really good to spend so much time with my hands messy, rough, caked in paint and glue, busy with the basis of what brought me to this very particular point in my life. With Mike topping off my coffee mid-morning and Chubby Boots lolling around on torn paper at my feet it felt as though I was slowly slipping back into a good flow separate from all the bad energy.

And I got so much done! Five paintings are waiting at my print shop to be scanned and made into prints. But more than that, the act of creating art is cathartic in itself, and the time spent repetitively layering, painting, sanding and drying allowed for a lot of thought. I paint because I have something to tell you that I can't put into words, and it will always be that way whether I have a dozen clients and projects or a blank slate for months. It will always be about the painting, the sole act of describing experiences on a flat plane of canvas and nothing else, despite what distractions and hurdles abound. The simplest things are the easiest to overlook.