My senior year in college a class of mine went to visit a few artist's studios to talk with them about where and the way they work. One artist in particular stood out to me because of the way she worked. She told us that she worked a job-job 6 months out of the year and then spent the following 6 months in her studio working on her art.
It seemed crazy to me that she could switch on and off her creative time like that. Go 6 months without painting??? It sounded so clinical and un-passionate to me at the time.
But as the years pass and life with my family takes precedence, I have found myself falling into a pattern with my art that at one time I would have balked at.
I don't know if you have noticed, but I haven't been painting paintings (aside from Seed & Sky illustrations) for quite some time. The short answer to why is that my life is full. And full in a good way, but full nonetheless. Lots of days with these two:
and lots of days in my studio working on Seed & Sky. And my down time is the few hours between when we hear the last murmurs of the little ones as they fall asleep and when I also turn off the lights. However, these are also the hours that I connect on my blog or facebook or pinterest.
But these are excuses and the reality is that I have been falling into a pattern of short bursts of working and then months, even a year, passes between with barely any big paintings being born. It is a mystery as to why I can't seem to squeeze in an hour here, an hour there, but up to now, it hasn't been happening.
I have a range of emotions about my lack of endless hours in my studio playing around. But I also know that sometime in the near future I will have a gap in our regular routine which allows me to have a burst of creativity. I just have to be patient and soak in the inspiration from my daily life in the meantime.
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