If there is one word all artists fear, it’s that one: blocked. To struggle to make art, to feel things inside that need to come out, and to have this go on for days, then weeks, then months, and then it finally dawns on you: blocked. Now comes the tedium of finding the cause of the block. Mostly, if there are unexpressed emotions in the artist’s life, therein lies the cause of the block.
For me, my writing has helped me break through a lot of blocks I’ve felt this year, even though this blog and a manuscript for a children’s book are all I’ve created. I’m really blocked in the drawing and painting area. I have ideas that just won’t translate to the paper. I’ve done everything to free myself. Taken classes, acquired the right materials – nothing worked. I did find I can reproduce things on paper using many mediums. I can see a beautiful thing and recreate it. That’s not the art that’s blocked.
Today in my TypePad newsletter the featured blog caught my eye so I investigated it. The blog was an inspirational blog written by an artist that designs tableware. Her name is Stephanie Ryan and her blog is called Small Sweet Steps. She was afflicted with lyme disease ten years ago and features her recovery and her latest designs in her blog. I share some of her work in the photo below. Prints can be purchased on her Etsy site.
Stephanie’s blog and artwork were inspirational to me today. After reading some of her posts and looking at her artwork, it dawns on me the art I want to create is inside of me – like her tableware designs are inside of her. I want to take my watercolors and put them on the paper and see what appears. I don’t want to merely copy something I see. I need the form on the paper to be something unique to me, from within, never seen before – not even by me.
You might be wanting to say to me, “Well, what are you waiting for? You have all the stuff. Just go paint and see what happens.” Ahhh….there is the block – fear. I am afraid. Maybe what I have to create is not worth creating after all. Maybe unresolved pieces of my life are paralyzing me. Maybe what I create won’t be beautiful. Maybe it will be hurtful to look at. I can’t do it. I just walk by the easel everyday and can’t stop and pick up the brush or the pencil.
I realize this has to change because:
“It is in changing that things find purpose.” ~ Hereclitus
And so, as another day goes by, it becomes more evident that November will be a month of listening, changing, and hopefully, finding purpose, and ….I have written.
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