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Friday, January 20, 2012

It never rains when you want it too...

As much as I do not like storms or being caught outside in the rain, for wearing wet clothes is one of my biggest pet peeves (especially wet socks), there is more than just a literal antidote with the cleansing of rain.  It is more of a metaphorical meaning. Not in the sense of "it washes away the *insert emotion here* of the day before", but in the fact that after a rain, there is a clarity that we would not have seen without said rain.

Sometimes things happen to us to show us what we really need and somethings happen to show us what we want, but do not need just yet.  There is no shame in wanting something, unless that thing is something you are forcing.  It is always good to take a step back and see everything from a different perspective. In art, it could be because you have a skewed perspective or the wrong composition.  When you are able to take a step back and look at what you are trying to create, you give yourself a different angle, a new outlook. You can rearrange things and adjust your angle.  Then when you take that step back in to continue your work, you have changed your approach.  This new approach will give you something to work towards and live up to, but only if that is what you really want. Art can not be forced, it must be created with passion, hard work, consistency and love.  You have to be open to what it is ready to give and ready to learn.

Every now and again, you will ask another fellow artist to take a look. You would like a critique, a whole new set of eyes to tell you that what you are doing is brilliant, exciting, new and innovative and of course, never been done before.  However, they may not always say what you WANT to hear. They will definitely give you a new perspective because their minds work completely different than yours. Of course, they will try to understand what you are doing and they may go along with your explanation, but in the end, they are going to see what they want to see and say what they want to say. You cannot control someones thoughts just like you cannot control their words, but what you can control is your reaction to such statements. Try to be open to their, hopefully, constructive criticism.  Take their suggestions to mind but remember to always follow your heart.

In art, we express ourselves figuratively, emotionally, literally and metaphorically (along with many more 'allys I am sure), but one thing we do not do is bring false pretenses to our work. (Unless of course, we do it on purpose, then that is a whole different matter entirely...).  We are constantly changing our minds on how the final piece should look and flow.  We know that sometimes, the best thing is to just let it be, walk away from it for a little bit and then in our own time, come back to it.

We are artists, even though we will tell you we are not dramatic, we are. It is because we are passionate, that we are dramatic. We are in touch with our emotions because they are those we are trying to share with the world. We, (and I should really just start using I, because, lets get real, it is ME who I am talking about here...), I am going to continue to be who I am and express myself with as much honesty and passion that I can.  I am creating new work everyday and I do, what I feel, is best for me.  It is "me" who I have to look out for and even though I do seek the constructive criticism of all of you, I have to remember to not let that influence what is in my heart so much that I loose sight of what I want.

And like I said previously, it may be what I want, just not what I need right now. So, I am stepping away from art for a while, in a bit, I will come back to it. I trust that it will always be there for me in some way, shape or form.  I want to focus on the tasks I have at hand to get myself back to Grand Rapids, to where I am being called. There, I will start creating again and I know I can count on my art to be just as fabulous as before.

Stay tuned, folks, for you know, I am never in one spot for long.


AC out.

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