Blurts and Inspiration

I've been trying to do morning pages when I can - and if I do - to do them immediately as I wake up.

This morning I woke from a dream. I did my morning pages and then overturned the room looking for a sketch pad. There I doodled without trying to be "good"! I just got the ideas out. I asked questions and answered them on the page. I played. I wanted to get the idea out. 

And there it was. Was it a painting? Hmm, in some ways that would have been easier and also harder. Was it a piece of sculpture? I like to work in 3D. It needed a sound-scape to tell the story. So how would that work with a 3D sculpture? Maybe. But it would be amazing if it was mechanised! I sat back from the doodles and notes.

And then it came to me! It was none of the above and it was all of them! It was an animation!

The last few days with getting back to drawing I hadn't paid attention to blurts. Those nasty negative beliefs that are only that - beliefs. And beliefs, like opinions, can be changed!

In my morning pages I heard the parrot's blurts. "You can only draw/work from life" "You are so literal"

Well working from life/nature is a wonderful talent! Its also an inspiration that, like the leaf on the tree, has infinite variations of itself. So the parrot is totally barking up the wrong tree there! (Oh did I just pun and mix up cliché?)

But there has been that old gem of a blurt also "You have no original ideas". But besides blurts there has been a genuine desire to compose in an non literal fashion.

And this morning it was there in my dream. This image. That started with disgust and as I teased it out became more and more poignant to where I am, to what I have been going through the last few weeks (and maybe years).

It wasn't literal either. I couldn't beat myself up with that blurt. On top of all these revelations I also had a starter for an art form I have long been fascinated with and wanted to try.

I asked the question and the answer came; the beauty of asking questions and listening for the answers. I also didn't have to push or squeeze my eyebrows together to achieve it! It emerged like a feather cascading down from an endless blue sky. (Where it came from I don't know but I do know that there are plenty more feathers up there... Or maybe even whole birds flying around!)

Perfect Enough

So I started drawing again the other day. I was on total rest with a viral infection in my lungs and looking for something low impact and creative to keep me going.

A revelation struck me; I haven't sketched for enjoyment for years. I left art college in 2005 and I had no desire to pick up a paint brush or sketching pencil since then. (And I probably had no desire to do so in the final few moths there either.) 

What really struck me was this; that the very place I went to in order to invest in my art drained  from me every bit of joy I had for art. 

The whys are "whatever"s now. What is interesting now is the sense of pressure I feel when I draw. Gone are the carefree days of drawing for hours as a child just because I liked it. It has to have a purpose and to be successful. The race for perfection and "The Fear" arises again. It doesn't have to be perfect - and if it was perfect it would be awful!  

In art college there was a woman there who worked as the caretaker of the building. Someone was going on about getting a project perfect and she responded "That's the problem with you lot (students). You always want it to be perfect. If you just got into the mindset of "perfect enough" you would be a lot happier!" So here is my challenge. Is to find things "perfect enough". To stop pushing and just enjoy - otherwise whats the point!