“The First Twenty”
Tag: heidi rounds
The Pain of Creativity
“The pain of creativity is ingrained and never far from the artists consciousness.” – Leonard Everett Fisher
I wrote this quote in my sketchbook in 1992. I was a junior in high school and having problems coming up with ideas in my Studio Art class. Nearly 25 years later, I am having the same problems I had when I was seventeen, hot and still firm.
As I have stayed busy with commissioned work which I am more than grateful for, I have deadlines fast approaching for juried shows I am interested in being a part of. I work well under pressure, but am racking my brains trying to think of what to do this year. I feel like creativity is either something you have or you don’t. It’s like a sense of humor. You can’t bullshit being funny. Everyone sees right through it. I have accepted that I am not a creative person. I have lived in jeans and tank tops since I was a teenager. Same hair. Same makeup. Same style of music. Same food. I try to be creative in the way I dress or the way I do my hair. When I make attempts to change, I look like an idiot. It’s not me. The same is happening in the creative side of my artwork.
I try to set myself up so that I can clear my mind and focus. I love walking and being in nature. I love big sky and clean air. I love the sun and rain and all things outdoors. I never have as much of this as I need.
Last week I had my daughter home for three days with a stomach flu. Made for a very unaccomplished week. Yesterday, our family packed up to spend a day in the mountains. Our picnic and all things needed for a day out were ready to go. As we were getting in the car to leave, my daughters nose started to bleed. No big deal. We went inside to wait for it to stop. We waited, and waited, and waited. It didn’t stop bleeding. As I have gotten older, I have developed a strong phobia to blood pouring from my children, and this wasn’t a normal nose bleed. It was out of a horror movie. I tried to stay away so I wouldn’t pass out but my husband left me to go to the bathroom – convenient. I did everything I could think of, but the faucet of blood pouring from her nose made us soon realize that she would bleed to death if we didn’t do something. We gathered the family and instead of our day in sun with quiet and clean air, we spent the next 4 hours in the ER while my poor daughter was clamped, cleaned and bleeding all over herself and everyone else in a tiny, depressing room. Needless to say, she made it out just fine, but feeling like complete shit, we spent the rest of the day at home.
Glad for the thought that tomorrow is a new I day, I went to bed last night grateful for time I would have today to walk, get some sun, clear my mind and draw. My daughters stomach flu from last week had a different idea. My son has been throwing up since 1 am. He is laying in a lump next to me in a chair moaning and groaning. No serenity here. My poor kids.
The reason I wasted everyone’s time writing about this is because I feel like I would only ever be able to find and be in touch with my creative side if I built a shack somewhere deep in a forest where I lived off the land and had no contact with anyone. Being creative for me is like trying to think of how a song goes when there is another song playing in the background. There’s always a song playing in the background. Hmm… what to do… what to do…
Date night with nudes
Years ago, my husband and I would spend our Thursday nights at Open Drawing. This is where you pay a small fee and sit with other artists and have a model (usually nude) in the middle of the room and for a couple hours you can draw, without instruction in your own style and at your own pace. It is a very quiet and proper place, for obvious reasons. My mom would take the kids for a couple hours. We would stop at Starbucks and try to get there early so we could pick a good spot and get easels next to each other in the back of the room. I’m claustrophobic and don’t like feeling trapped between people. We loved going. It was our little bit of time alone each week.
I took these opportunities to draw very seriously. I wasn’t in school anymore, and I loved having live models to draw from. My husband, Mike, however wasn’t as serious as I was. He is a very talented and capable artist, but would become impatient when having to draw for a long stretch. There were times where the model would hold the same pose for 2 hours with only a couple breaks in between. Mike would look for every reason to get me in trouble. I remember one of the first classes we attended. I had been concentrating on finishing before our session ran out. I looked over at Mike’s drawing and he had a complete figure minus the head. There was a soldier he had drawn on the side of the paper throwing a grenade. Where the head of the model should be was instead smoke rising up and ashes. I, of course, was taken by surprise and started laughing. I had to leave the room. Everyone was giving me nasty looks and the model didn’t look happy. I was horrified. That was just the start. From then on, Mike would go out of his way to try and make me laugh while sitting in a completely quiet room with other very skilled artist. He would do this in a way that would leave me looking like an asshole as he would immediately go back to work, very seriously like nothing had happened. I don’t think we have a lot of the drawings anymore, but I found these last week when I was digging for paper in our giant stack of drawings in the basement. Thought it would be fun to share.
Here we go…
I am so excited and nervous to get going with my new portrait artist website and career. My amazing husband has worked tirelessly getting everything ready for me.
I have always imagined a time in my life that I would be able to work as an artist. When I was young, I imagined myself in a house with a huge studio. I would wear flowy dresses. I would have nude models going in and out through my home and gardens. In between my numerous lovers, I would create paintings and drawings that would shock and awe society. I would intimidate and bewilder those around me. Classrooms of children would see my work and decide at that moment, that they too, wanted to be an artist.
Three kids and numerous shitty desk jobs later, I sit here. I sit in old-lady shorts and a tank top. I sit with my hair in an “I’ve given up” bun. I spent my morning cleaning up jammies, undies, toys, hair-ties and whatever else my kids left on the floor before going to school today. I decided to give up on trying to get the goo (doo) out of the intestines of my daughters Doggie Doo toy that hasn’t been able to poop since she fed it too much yesterday. These are my days.
There is no romance. We are all trying to make a living. I do this today for my kids. I have always preached to them that they can be anything in life if they work hard enough. This is my “anything”. I want them to watch me fulfill a dream. I want them to see that with work, you don’t have to follow society.
I sit here, at my desk, with a cup of coffee and music playing in the background. I sit with the project I’m working on. I sit here feeling grateful, for there is no place I would rather be.