Creative Passion vs Hesitation: The struggle is REAL
GRAAAAAR!!!!! hahahha -- sometimes if we lean in enough,
it becomes kinda funny... why take ourselves so seriously that we get stuck?
I had a wonderful prof in college from my MA program. She knew just what to say when I was in my head swiveling everywhere. Caught in the breezes in the dark. I have a quote from her framed even after all these years. I need to move it from my writing space to my studio. "Strive not for perfection but for thoroughness, beauty, and joy." Rhoda, VT College Professor. Thank you for that. I've held it in my mind-heart for years. I guess I need to hold it a little closer to my face for a while. Like, hanging from my hat like some kind of prompt reader for a while or something. I think we can use "perfection" as a place holder when things are too big to look at sometimes, like guilt and grief, or other complex combinations.
So here we are. I've made the space. I have the website, the Instagram, the blog, even a little shop. I have the camera. My studio is set up more beautifully than ever... and well stocked. I've decided to offer art more publicly than I ever have because I love making things and I'll live like a crazy hoarder and I need to support my habit and I really just want to AND I knew I wanted to be a world art explorer and maker (whatever that was) as a small girl, but that wasn't for women of my generation - women's rights movements were just budding and that's a writing for another day.
SO,
I've always just had it fit in and around every one and every thing, which was fine, but now I have a space of my own. Wow. I have the time, mostly- ish. I'm making the art, I'm writing. I have things already done. Now I have to put it all together. I have to take the step to be seen, because that's what I prepped for, set up happy goals about. I have to figure out how to put it out there. I have to risk something. I think, maybe. I mean, I've been selling art by commission or because people were somehow enchanted by my creations forever. But this whole other layer of internet world. Wow. What a space. I thought I could create this tiny cloak of annonimity annynomity... anonnymity anonymity of a nickname (Tireless Butterfly was initially never going to expose my name! hahah, no, I knew that was not a good idea) and a web presence could provide the security blanket to the anxiety I felt to the Out There naked feeling...I thought I had the bases covered. What's that really about? This is just joy and fun and if it isn't, why do it? I can't help but make things. It's so wonderful. Or mischievous even. I love the feelings of creation. The process and the ride of creation. (another post, another day) I want to talk with SO MANY of these places in other people too. I think it's important for us to have a space for that. Part of my goals, right? I didn't quite expect this. I thought I had THIS one covered. I thought, this one was behind me enough and I was ready, SURPRISE... So...
TODAY I'M NOTICING THE CONFLICT BETWEEN PASSION AND HESITATION
I feel like Piglet fretting about going into the Hundred Acre Woods... It's big, dark, and full of strangeness in there. This is that moment I've planned for a long time. Since I'm hesitating, I have some questions:
Am I that person on the outside that I am on the inside? I am pretty insular in these ways...
Can I bridge the divide?
Is there a divide?
If there is, what is it? If there isn't, why can't I walk away?
Would I feel compelled to push myself in this way if there wasn't? Am I even asking the best question? Should I just not think about it, and treat it like a time management, discipline problem>that's never worked in the past... hahahah... but should I? You know the tough talk: just do it already, what's your deal? (That doesn't work by the way)
So that last question is incorrect because it is inherently unkind. Taking my time, and releasing the pressure, just being me, leaning into my curiosity, I will figure it out. I made it this far in so many ways and things. And Piglet always makes it through the Woods. I'm sure we'll wander back here as I mosey along in my own way.
The butterfly's way...
So, Tireless Butterfly was supposed to be a lovely nickname to hide behind, but it's really just guiding me to a liberation, an instinctual call of just doing and being.
The work I have always done and still love and do has always been about service, teaching, public speaking, caring... and I love it and build on it. People respond well, so I continue feeling purposeful and good at it. But this - art making, writing, and sharing it, I realize is so different. These are my spaces. Sure they serve, but they are coming from me in a different way. It's a whole other connection. The me of me is actually pretty within, and that's my playground. Now I'm showing it to people -- oooo... weird. It's not about nakedness, and as soon as I can release that, I may see may way through... and, so what if we're a little naked... woohoo?
Something here in this process I am wringing my hands about, is like stepping into the Woods... because I need to. What have you been through like this? I think I'll be Finding my way Home...it's just through this path ... ummm.. in here....
(original watercolor by me: 18x24, Strathmore Coldpress, texturized paper technique,
primarily M Graham watercolors, some Winsor Newton, maybe a Sennelier, I don't remember)
© 2018-current Birdi Sinclair, tBfly
Let's be naked... ~Birdi