Decades ago when I
attended college (okay, it wasn’t decades
– but somehow it feels like it was) I enrolled in a beginners painting
class. Unlike acrylic that I use now, we were studying in oil. I am happy that I
dabbled in oil paints so I know what the perks (rich deep colors and textures)
and cons (eternal drying time. No seriously for-ev-er).
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Besides that general
experience there was only one thing I remember my professor teaching us. I can’t
even recall her name, but I remember she was a wiry mid-adged woman, who not
only owned unruly hair, but owned an undescribable obsession with cats.
She stood up at the
front of the class one day and stated, “Never paint to sell.”
What?
That is why I was going
through college though. I was going to be a full time artist, and have lots of
kids, and have a handsome husband, and everyone will know me for my art, I may
even have a unicorn as a pet, who knows?
Somehow, in that moment
of my youth, I felt like my professor was not a professor at all, but an alien from outer space speaking lies to dash our hopes and dreams.
Fast forward with me, if you will, to today. I’m
sitting in my “art room” (more of a
corner of a guest bedroom) writing this and turning over in my mind that
statement that I heard about ten years prior. I want to know why I paint. Why
take so much of my time and spend it with a canvas, paint, and brush. So many
other things demand my time, so why make this the priority? The answer, more
clearly than it ever was before, is not
that I want to sell, the reason is so much deeper than this.
Now it is clear what my professor was saying. As
an artist, if you paint only with the
intention of pleasing a crowd, the joy of creating disappears.
I paint, because I need to.
Creating is part of me, inseparable, as a living
soul is inside a body. Creating is who I am. The passion to create is my
lifeline and when it suffocates, I too am affected.
Every piece of art, finished on canvas or still floating
around in my mind is an extension of me. This may come as an obvious discovery. It took me nearly thirty years to figure it all out on my own though.
At times, I will create
a painting with no idea where the inspiration came from. Once it is finished, I
can then view it, study it and analyze why this particular painting came to existence.
I have to dig deep at times inside my subconscious to find what drove the image
to the surface. The meanings can be emotional or silly, but I do this so I can
share the painting’s story with you. I only hope, that you will also participate in my passion through my paintings and art stories.
