About this art thing I do

The other day I was listening to the Creative Pep Talk podcast while sketching, and Andy said something that had me feeling like I was staring into my optometrist’s eye machine. Suddenly, with a few turns of the eye wheel—click, click, click— my vision cleared. (and yes, I had to look up the name for that machine—it’s called a phoropter—and I had to draw it in my daily sketchbook.)

“Do you ever just wish that someone would take a sincere interest about what's going on inside of you, your thoughts, your feelings? Do you ever just wish somebody would really. give you the time and space to articulate all of that stuff, everything about who you are and what you're about and what you struggle with and what you believe and what you feel and what it's like to experience life through your lens?

“…I can almost certainly say that you do, not just because you're a human and I think it's definitely a human desire to be known, but I think for artists, that's not just a desire, it's more like a desperation it's like, please somebody!”

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Another thing happened that day that gave me pause. In conversation with my hiking buddy, Bill, I was explaining that I didn’t have time to devote too many hours in a morning for exercise and his response was, “What else you got to do?”

I’m not employed so I guess that’s a reasonable question. On the other hand, it just made me sad. No shade on Bill—I’m pretty sure everyone I know and love has either expressed to me outright or silently wondered the same thing.

If I don’t work. At a job. It’s all just slack time, right?

I could say a lot more about the state of our late capitalist culture that conditions us to believe that the only time of value is time spent working (and the only people of value are those who work), but for now I will simply explain that the reason I felt sad is that even the people closest to me really don’t know the value of what I do with my time.

And I have to be honest with myself—the reason they don’t know is because I haven’t told them. Not really.

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“What else I got to do?”

I am not a professional artist—someone, that is, who makes art for money.

And yet, I am not purely a hobbyist who ONLY creates for myself. I KNOW I have something for others…I just can’t be sure about what that something is to give.

I guess if pushed, I’d explain that I dive into creative flow, problem solve, experiment, discover, learn and make.

I follow my heart without fully understanding its impulses. All I know is that there is a larger force at work here. This deep desire to create exists for a reason.

And so I draw and paint and write in my journals and sketch in my sketchbooks. I scribble, mark and spatter away…I share some on instagram and here on my website… patiently waiting to understand why. And for what purpose.

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So now maybe I have provided some glimpse '“through my lens”. But there’s one more thing I need to share about me. Something else, even bigger, that clicked, clicked, clicked into place recently.

Art is not my only love.

As much as I love to draw and paint and write—I equally love to learn.

I’ve always been this way. I’m curious. About how things work and how people function. How life works! What is the nature of reality? I want to know why. I want to know ’how to’. I want to know what else.

Art making is a wonderful way to feed my love of learning—because I get to learn how to create and how to use materials, but even more I get to learn about myself.

Filling a blank page or canvas is truly a mirror for how we fill our lives.

Besides the joy to be found in the creative moment, learning is the greatest benefit to being an artist.

Reading and taking classes is the other wonderful way I feed my love of learning. I especially love blogs (which are WAY more popular and interesting than most people realize). We are truly beyond blessed in this day and age to have access to all the interesting people and amazing minds in the world, people with real expertise and knowledge and insight and experience.

And like all of us, podcasts and books (television, video and film) attract my brainwaves too. Basically, I am moved by other people’s art and this is a huge way I learn.

And yet. I have to admit that I am hugely frustrated.

I take so much in! I learn and learn and learn. But what do I do with all these treasures? What I learn in my art. What I find In nature. What I read and feel and think about.

I myself benefit so much from what I find. I encounter ideas and shift perspective. I make changes, take action. I create every day, which brings so much insight and joy (challenges and confusion).

I live a rich, creative, curiosity-fueled inner world.

How can I share these gifts? By creating and expressing what I learn, of course.

Make Art.