Onto other things.
I'm going to paint my computer room, the room where I store the bulk of
my art supplies, reams of paper, rocks, etc., etc. I've spent my weekend moving most of it into other rooms for the
duration. Moving some of this stuff
brought up emotions, memories, dust, and dog hair. I swear I'll move out of the house before painting this room
again! Today, I'm moving onto spackling
water damage from a previously faulty gutter.
I watched a nice Australian man's video about how to do it. I wish he were here to do it for me.
Maybe you get lots of positive reinforcement. Betty showing off my work made me face that
I've gotten a lot of negatives. Art can
be a competitive, brutal business. You
often get lots of criticism and revisions, and "good job!" is seldom
in the vocabulary.
I spend my days with data at work. The ladies in my dept know I've worked as an illustrator, but the
other people didn't. I liked it that
way, maybe because I've spent so much of my life identifying myself first and
foremost as an artist. It was/is so
much of how I think of myself, it's nice to be known for other traits -- or
maybe I just didn't want to deal with more criticism and suggestions?
I went home that day feeling mighty pleased with
myself. People stopped me in the hall
to say they were impressed. I've been
waiting a long time to be able to show this magazine and it felt good to be
praised for it. I felt a flicker of
life and hope inside. They especially liked the parts that I spent stupid
amounts of time doing. (They loved my
forks!) Joy, joy, joy and I started to
remember I really like getting this kind of feedback. It motivated me to go into art for a living.
