Puny
Posted on | January 8, 2008 |
I have unreasonable expectations, constructed on scaffolding I can hardly climb, and from up there I sometimes get vertigo. When I sit down to do art, I feel them creeping up : that I’m not doing more, or better work. That it’s not good enough. It’s so lame, this inner voice. So useless, yet there it is.
Tonight I insist on quashing this inner critic and cut squares at random from magazine with Bean on my lap. At my floor, a widening circumference of scraps. I am a messy artist. I wrap my hand over Bean’s smaller one and show him how to brush gel medium over the scraps I’ve assembled.
It’s not much, not pen and ink or watercolors or even really any work I generated myself. (See, there’s the voice. Where does it come from?) And yet I force myself to go with it tonight, making a mosaic of color. Pictures of spaces, dishes, fabric, dreams. For an instant I imagine there: in the restaurant with the red-backed chairs, or the windowed room with the pale green blown glass baubles hanging from the ceiling.
I try to let it be enough for a Tuesday, when my temples ache and the cat vomited on the kitchen table and the dishes are still in the sink.
Sigh.
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13 Responses to “Puny”
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January 8th, 2008 @ 11:21 pm
and isn’t it amazing when enough can also look so beautiful. so very very beautiful. thank you… thank you for the reminder that someone’s enough can be someone else’s uplifting wow.
January 8th, 2008 @ 11:30 pm
We all need a built in mute button for the inner critic….so unwelcome, yet ever present. Just remember, you’re doing it! You’re making art, and teaching your child to value beauty and creativity and spending quality time with him. Not to mention making really cool stuff even when the cat gives you back his dinner.
LOL! I LOVED your art everyday…but so far its been just a deep longing instead of a reality. You need to give yourself a bit more grace and go easy on you! Were your hummingbirds and turtles mixed media, or images you painted?? I adored these…maybe if I get brave I’ll post some of my stuff…if I can find the mute buttin for that critic 
January 9th, 2008 @ 2:39 am
Constructing a whole from many pieces, showing how the lines keep going, then look over here how the gears pick up the movement, and the dots from the green water echo in the yellow splatters of the paint, that is enough and beautiful too.
And it’s the act of creating that is important too, not just the final product. That’s what I love most about what you have started this month. Somehow finding time to do that creation has taught me possibilities I didn’t know were there. Thank you.
January 9th, 2008 @ 2:55 am
It’s more than enough for a Tuesday, it’s lovely for any day.
January 9th, 2008 @ 9:05 am
Last night I sat down and left the clothes in the dryer and laundry basket (though the dishes managed to get washed) and I left the dusting and cleaning to be done another day and did something as well.
Mixed media is awesome and I think a good way to just put something on paper and let it be.
January 9th, 2008 @ 9:20 am
You sweet woman, you remind me so much of my beloved step-mother - she is no longer with us and I miss her dearly. She had that overly critical inner voice too. The one that pestered her about the pictures she painted not being good enough; the aphids in the greenhouse being a result of her not doing enough in there (even though people came from miles around to buy her beautiful plants because of the care she put in); or the guilt she would feel if she skipped days running and did something else. It’s difficult to see someone so critical with themself when all I see is beauty in everything they do and create - even if it is a half-ass effort. I wish I had that talent in my full strength endeavors. Don’t let that horrid voice get in your way - you, like my step-mother, create more beauty in one Tuesday night with a headache and cat vomit on a table than most people do in a perfect day. Hugs to you.
January 9th, 2008 @ 10:56 am
But think: all those images were put together with your eye, which is the most important thing an artist can have. Your sense of artistic direction, your sense of placement, of movement, of voice.
But I hear you on the inner critic. I have a love-hate relationship with my writing, with my art. Some days I am bursting with pride, others I despise what I have done. It’s a bipolar pendulum, in some senses. Just keep thinking of all the voices here who support you.
January 9th, 2008 @ 9:25 pm
I call that voice my Drunk Monkey.
I love mixed media and would proudly have your art on my wall.
It’s colorful and beautiful and unique.
Don’t ever let your drunk monkey ever tell you otherwise.
January 9th, 2008 @ 10:57 pm
Tanya said it best - absolutely, amen, preach it sister! - because I love all that you share with us, and this piece in particular I really love. I wish I had an afternoon with you, so that you could teach me the knitty gritty stuff that I trip up on - what I need to really explore and play - so far I’m having fun, but I wish I knew more! about the nuts and bolts of it all.
Aubrey and her drunk monkey - that is TOTALLY making me laugh. It’s good to laugh at the inner, nasty critic - the one that would rather us do nothing, rather than try, and enjoy the trying.
January 10th, 2008 @ 4:08 am
Tanya said it best. Even with all the obstacles and hassles, you still found it important to sit with Bean and create something together. That’s what Bean will remember growing up - not that the dishes weren’t done or the house wasn’t clean. He’ll love the times he spent with his mother, being wrapped in her arms and learning to be creative. Be good to yourself.
January 10th, 2008 @ 6:46 pm
i get this…
i really really get it.
January 11th, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
Hello - haven’t been here before but am glad I came today. Upon recently making a kind of pact with God that I would pursue what brings me joy (making art) I first found lots of joy and then, the critic kicked in. Lately it’s enough to just sit down at the table with the books,mail, art supplies, and car keys, and just get something out. I am trying to ignore that critical voice. It’s nice to imagine you on the floor, making your work/art too, in spite of the critical stuff. Good for you. I’ll try to remember that you’re out there trying and doing too.
January 29th, 2008 @ 5:42 am
This just makes me weep.