Usually when I sit down to blog, I have several topics that have been swimming in my head for a while to choose from. And it's just a matter of choosing one and putting words to it.
This time it's a little hard to get started because, basically, I don't feel like I know anything. Well, that's not totally true. I know enough to know not knowing is a very good place to be. It probably means I'm about to learn something I didn't already know or get my mind changed about something I thought I knew but didn't.
This isn't all that serious. I'm not feeling lost or even unsure about what I'm currently experiencing (i.e. the studio, the biz, my relationships - just don't factor in videos I can't make myself watch and the ugliness of politics and the state of the world and humanity stuff). But it is a bit unsettling.
I know how to paint the way I paint. I know how to draw the way I draw. I know how to endlessly amuse myself with art supplies when left alone to do so. It's all good. It all makes for a very happy life.
Except.
Except when I step out of what I already know and cross into I wonder if I can figure out how to do this new thing.
Part of me feels intrigued by the new thing and part of me wants to take a nap every time I get near it instead of putting in the effort. Expending effort didn't seem so difficult when I was younger. I seemed to have effort to spare.
And here's where discipline comes in. Here's why I'm writing the blog today, ready or not.
I didn't set up this studio to paint crows and lizards and owls over and over .
There's nothing wrong with any of those things and I'll probably still paint them from time to time because it's comforting to do (they have become friends). Instead, I set it up to try and find and then share some bigger purpose to it all.
I haven't really figured out much of how to do that yet and, can you believe it, I've been in this studio for a year come April. But I have an important clue that lives in the moment where I choose to try and then stay with something new long enough to "get it" or decide taking a nap would be easier. Nothing wrong with naps either. I love my naps. I just don't want to sleep through the rest of my life.
And I don't want to be afraid of starting in a place of not knowing.
I suspect, and again I don't know, from where I'm at right now, that what I'm looking for is a way to inspire you to discover the joy of expressing yourself in art without the fear of not already knowing how.
At the beginning is a good place to be. So much to discover.
And it turns out, it was a good day to write a blog after all.
Photo was taken in my garage while I was just dreaming about the studio.