@Ineedtocreate tweeted today: Procrastination turns into stagnation.

My first though, seconds before I hit retweet was, “No shit Sherlock.”

Moments later @dooneystudio tweeted a link to her blog post about how people will work a McJob even while sick but not put forth the same effort for their art.

I’m not sure what it is lately about the internet but every thing that I need to have spoken to me has hit me with a right left combination and left me reeling. I graduated from UMaine in 1998. I went out into the world fully expecting to keep making art while I was teaching art to High School students. My outlook rose colored, I entered the workforce completely unaccustomed to getting up at 5am and working for 8 hours straight at something that that really didn’t interest me that much. I had a set curriculum to follow, the demand that I learn pottery though I abhor the process and a couple of rooms full of teens that didn’t give 2 shits about art.

My expectation was that I get my work into the local gallery, sell from there for awhile and then graduate to one a little further away and so on, until my stuff was hanging in Portland and or Boston. That is a very achievable goal for a hard working artist in the area in which I grew up and found myself dumped into after graduation.

What I didn’t expect was to hate the reality of waking up at 5am, as a certified night owl, 5am is a HARD wake up time for me, and if I wake that early I need a nap around 2 pm. (At the DayJob I often close the door to my office and power nap for 15 to 20 minutes or nap in my car.) I didn’t expect to really dislike some of the kids, and I mean dislike with a powerful burning passion. I had the student who threatened my life as well as the drugged out student athlete who drove around my home town until he found where I lived and would drive by late in the evening yelling things*** at the house and tossing beer bottles into the ditch. I also had the Principal who found out I was gay and harassed me daily and offered no support to me.

5 months into my teaching career my first serious girlfriend and I split after living together for close to 2 years. Losing my best friend, lover and support network all in one go drove me into a pretty deep depression. I stopped drawing, painting and meeting what few friends I had in the area. My life became a misery of 5 am wake ups, a grind of work, eating an unhealthy meal, spending time on the internet and watching network TV until 1 am. I hated my job and I hated my life.

A couple months into my misery a friend of mine came to visit me, unannounced as many of my friends did at the time; and as I’d stopped answering phone calls. I was sitting on the front doorstep attempting to draw the birdbath in pastels and failing miserably. Pastels had been a standby in school, something I could whip out a reasonable drawing with in little time and have it come out with reasonable accuracy. I vividly remember her asking me what I was drawing and me essentially having a hissy fit and tossing my drawing board to the grass. Normally I don’t display strong emotion, especially anger to my friends and my temper tantrum shocked her. We talked about the crap that was going on in my life. Instead of talking about the misery and abject depression; I expressed anger at my job and the goings on there. I was so hopeless at the time that I could only focus on those small petty incidents at work and was unable to express the deep misery I felt and the constant trauma and drama my ex was inflicting on me via the phone hence my not answering*.

I let myself procrastinate in my art and thus stagnate in my whole life. Shortly after that visit from my friend I managed to royally screw things up with her by being a complete asshole and at the time refusing to apologize**. I look back and realize that part of that screw up was that I didn’t deal with my depression and more importantly stopped working on the stuff that really mattered to me. I have ALWAYS been more happy in all aspects of my life if I am arting in some manner. It doesn’t matter if I’m drawing from life, working in my art journal or smearing paint on a page.

Since that time I have gone through a series of McJobs that I’ve abhorred and some I’ve liked (current job) but none that really address my passion: art.

So my goal for the next 2 years is to keep working on my art and put as much time and effort into it as I have the last 7 years working for the “man.” I want you, my readers, to help keep me on track and I’ll help you stay on track too!

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Kumi's colors, my lines
Originally uploaded by Floodfish

Floodfish on flickr does some amazing work. Another person you should head over to flickr and LOOK at every single item in their pool. Seriously great stuff, amazing colors, great line, lovely drawings

At the DayJob one of my coworkers is also an artist. He focuses primarily on printmaking but he also does some painting. He’s a pretty cool dude and I value his opinion and we chat (IM) a lot. A couple of days ago he told me, “So… I really dig the recent work you’ve been doing.”

It was the right thing to “hear” at the right time.

I recently offered to donate a couple of paintings to a family fundraiser for an in law that has cancer for the 3^rd go round. My offer was an attempt to be generous and attempt to help the family make some much needed dollars in a tough time. The offer was well received but with a caveat, it may not be the right venue to maximize the dollar amount.  

The last thing I want to see is my work go for much less than #1 it’s worth or #2 I can get for it. So after careful consideration and deliberation, as well as discussion with the in laws I decided to not donate my work but to donate something that will go with the “product mix” and crowd. As the in law described it as “not an arty” crowd.

As much as it hurts to know that my work is not right for a certain crowd, after all we all want to be universally loved and accepted, it’s better to know in advance that the work would not go for what it’s worth. I’m just controlling enough to want it to go for a certain amount and know that I can hold it and get the right money.

While selling my art (and craft) is a necessary endeavor for me as it forms a part of my income, my DayJob allows me to be picky enough in my sales that I can tell people to eff off if I don’t like the offer. Selling and offering to sell for charity to a certain extent removes that ability. While I’m bothered that my art isn’t right for a certain venue it’s better to know in advance.

The lesson learned here for me is that I need to learn the venue before I make an offer.

I’m sitting in my office/studio sipping my first cup of coffee of the day and enjoying the relative quiet of my ‘hood. At this time of day few cars are driving by and few people are even awake. In the hood, if your awake at this hour you’re either on your way to work, or headed to church. Mostly, though, I suspect most of my neighbors are sleeping off hangovers.

I look at Sunday mornings as a gift of sorts.  I relish the quiet and the solitude I feel and also I know I can drive just about anywhere and nto be stuck in traffic. When noon rolls around that won’t be the case. I’ve learned never to go out for breakfast on a Sunday either, unless I want to sit and wait for a seat or be very annoyed.

I’m looking at my 3 paintings I’ve got rotating in and out of the easel and really liking how they are working for me. They are all at various stages of work and I’m learning so much about applying paint, approximating HOW much paint to squeeze to my palette and paint mixing.

The quiet of the morning is punctuated by perfect breezes flowing through my windows. I shall enjoy this late summer day while painting and drawing at the beach. These paintings on the easel… They can wait for a less perfect day.

the fashion boy
Originally uploaded by Diana Köhne

Love this quirky little ink drawing.

Window of Opportunity
Originally uploaded by Juliette Crane

I love the mixed media in this piece by Juliette Crane, the music notes are perfect with the little golden bird.

Hopefully i’ll be able to post more in process pics from my new phone! This is just a test!

Too Much Is Never Enough.
Originally uploaded by David Fullarton

David Fullarton does some really great work. I love his use of layers of paper, typography and drawings. Good stuff.

I’ve been writing a lot on my blog, I’m sure you’ve noticed. I find the more I paint the more words I have about stuff. I sit and I wait for paint to dry, sometimes I move the canvas and work on the board, or another canvas. But I’m producing with a serious bent. More serious than I’ve ever painted before. Painting was never something I liked, never something I explored. It was frustration. I looked at canvases as my arch-nemesis. Paper was my friend, my ally I knew it could tell you how it would respond to paint. Canvas, bent and bowed to my brush, there was give where I didn’t want there to be. Paper taped to board, that is where it was at.

Now I look to my brushes, I have rediscovered them. I’ve taught myself to use them, control them, and trite it may be bend them to my will and get the paint to respond the way I WANT IT TO.

Go with the flow, make it happen. I have learned to manipulate the paint. Sad to say that never happened in school, a million years ago, when my classmates were figuring out PAINT. I was figuring out ME and who I fit in. Paint was the least of my worries. Life took its course and here I am, older wiser and finally figuring out paint.

Honestly, I feel stupid that I spent all that time in school with brush in hand (2 painting courses and a course devoted to watercolors) and I wasted it. Semesters of work of the most boring banal variety and here I am just now LEARNING to paint. Teaching myself.

To all of you entering art school this week or next think of how to teach yourself, how do you learn? Are you figuring out you? Or are you figuring out the paint? Spend the time to figure out the paint. You’ll never have the time again in your life. I so very much wish I had not squandered the gift that was going to school. Don’t think for a minute I learned nothing in school, I learned heaps about paint but not the connection you need to feel it and want to use it.

One of the problems that I have with working on art so much is that I really want to keep my momentum going for days on end. The DayJob often leaves me beyond tired at the end of the day and the last thing I want to do when exhausted is pick up a brush and start my second 40 hour work week. I’ve been putting in 12 hour days on the weekends and 2 and 3 hours after my DayJob nearly everyday.

Some days I want o paint late into the day. I can do that a few times here and there but really I need to stop and sleep at some point.

I have a painting on the easel and another at the ready. I’ve got the first layers applied and I really want to wait for the first layer to film over and then get tht second layer of paint on but I have to go to work in the AM.

I look forward to the day when I can work on art as my DayJob.