I find that my life and my art mirror each other. A recent reminder is my current situation. I have been trying to become more flexible in how I live, less rigid, and this is creating distress. The way I view life, the way I live life is changing, and this is disturbing. It is hard to be consistent, and always follow my new more flexible way of living. I still flip back and forth between the more rigid and the more flexible me.
What is so amazing is this same struggle is occurring in my art. I have a wonderful teacher who is stretching me to be more loose in my art and to see my art in a different way. It is working. I am seeing more in art than I ever did. I am doing new and different things, and trying my best to grow. However, this growth is causing me great confusion. I love realism, but am starting to look at more "artsy" artwork, and thinking I want to grow to do that. Yet, I don't want to stop doing realism. What I want to do is make my realism more "artsy" somehow, but I don't know how.
Just like my life outside of art, I feel uncomfortable with my art. I don't know where it is going, or where it will end up. I have to have faith that my art teacher will guide me along my journey while I am lost. I struggle to do what I don't understand, but can see, and now feel. I can not think my way to the next level of art, I must feel my way.
Most of the art classes I have taken were classes I could understand with the thinking part of my brain. The lessons on mark making, using color and brushes, and techniques are all good and have all moved my skill set forward to where I am today, but like my life, it is no longer enough to think my way forward. I need to start feeling my way forward.
I am confused about what feeling my way means. Does it mean feeling my emotions toward the subject, feeling the shape in three dimensions (like feeling the shape with my finger), or feeling the effect of the art that is being created, and learning from that, or all of the above and more I still can not understand.
I look at my art lately, and it does not look like my art. I see similar approaches to various masters, but I am missing from my own artwork. This adds to my confusion.
I work hard at being loose, and my teacher reminds me I must not get too loose. It is finding balance between feeling and thinking. Up to now, I have only existed on the thinking side of the continuum. Finding this balance is a difficult task at best.
My eyes are opening in my life outside of art, and my life in art. The journey is full of uncertainty as I fluctuate between how I always acted in the past and how I am learning to act in the future.
The only solution is fearlessly moving into the unknown, being honest with myself about my art, and not letting discouragement take over as my art goes through the same confusion as I am. In the end, I will see myself in my art again, and my art will grow with me. My art can only grow, if I grow in my life outside of art. I can not separate the two, nor would I want to.
As one of my favorite philosophers (Singhe) said "The only way out is through."
My mission is to get through and not give up along the way. This is my artist's path.
Hey Jim! I know exactly what you're talking about. I went through something similar a couple years ago. For me it was about letting go of my prejudices and accepting different forms of art. It was hard, and it's still a struggle, but I found a compromise. I have a process that relies on a logical system, but also allows me to be expessive and intuitive. I can't predict what my finished product will look like, but I always know what step comes next. This process came about through trial and error and experimentation. It was an evolution, not a decision, so stick with it and something amazing will come of this struggle!
ReplyDelete