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I’m out of the Rabbit Hole but still holding the hat. I disappeared from my blog after I admitted starting showing Signs of Life. It’s not because they disappeared but because they picked up speed. Lightening speed, in fact, and I went from couldn’t do anything because I was exhausted to not being able to do anything because I was anxious and hyper and unable to finish a single thought. Okay. That’s good. Medication proved it could make a change in the depression. I went back to the doctor and demanded a different, kinder, gentler change! It was agreed upon and administered and here I am. I have slid back into a space where it is difficult to pull myself into production mode but it is better than it was. I think. We’ll see. Welcome to Life. Life is change.
While I was spinning I was bored. Oh dear heavens was I bored! When you can’t finish a though you can’t function well enough to do much either. Menial labour is what is available to you: cleaning house, which I did. But I’m not a clean freak. I’m a head person. I’m a thinker. I couldn’t read a book or even settle into a magazine. I wrote only the drivel on my mind as a means to try slowing it down. The main activity besides cleaning was sorting. I culled my books in Samurai fashion and sent several boxes off to the charities as well as three bags of clothing, both what I wore and what I was saving for art scrap. Of course, last night I went downstairs to pick up a book to read only to find the one I wanted had been carted off. Oh well. These things happen.
Certainly no art was to be commenced in such a tizzy. Any idea that artists are flighty no-minds who live and die entirely by whims is a ridiculous one. A period of concentration is necessary to our work. Artists have the ability to be astoundingly focused individuals for the period of time they’re working. That’s why I spent the last two days working my way up to the point of being ready to set to work on a sculpture. It’s a small one, but it’s the first I’ve set my hand to in….I don’t know….since before Seanna died I’m sure. I spent time with the prep work. Lots of fiddling. More than was needed. It’s just a very simple little figural piece. It’s just that I’d tried to pick up a few different art mediums in the past while and made nothing but terribly ugly and incompetent messes. I’d reached the disheartened stage and I figured if I couldn’t even do this one thing well enough anymore I might as well hang up my artist boots. I was feeling very dramatically up against a creative wall, obviously.
Well the little fellow seems to have come out of the concentrated shaping phase okay and is drying peacefully by the window. I finished working on him just before dinner last night and kept going in the back room to take a peek at him up until bedtime. I didn’t expect him to do anything interesting. I just haven’t seen my own work in so long, not my sculptural work anyway, that it was both comforting and exciting a little bit. I’m not sure what the heck to do with him yet since I used to create several of these pieces at once intended for specifically planned displays. I’m considering learning the art of embellishment instead of simply painting him as I have always painted them until now. A new element of expression beyond the mere bent of the simple figure. We’ll see.
Every day seems to present me its own challenges. The challenges unique to the artist life are something else altogether. I can only continue to try and be an active artist knowing it will be a better fuller life if I can manage it in my own way.
