Riding the Creative Tsunami

For a over a year, I have been gluttonously consuming an ongoing sensory feast. Alaska, Paris, Italy, the American west, and New England. I expected a prolific response in my art. But with a head full of ideas, I was often overwhelmed with responsibility for making whatever I did “count.” I was paralyzed by indecision fueled by a sense that all I did must be in the service of some larger strategy. After all, I don’t have limitless free time.

The pressure to create for some public purpose or to meet the expectations of those around me, kept me from meeting the drive to create…without judgement, without any purpose but to free the ideas in my head. To follow curiosity without question. To blindly move with flow.

When I returned from Boston and seeing  the IM Pei Kennedy Library and the contemporary art museum, I finally moved. I reached out to a local sculptor for help finding a welding teacher and ended up in a kinetic sculpture class. Committing to dedicated art time and exploration has been liberating. Two weekends ago, I left a sleepless night to work on making my first handmade book.  Exhilerating. Empowering. Energizing. I am learning about new tools and building new skills in the sculpture class. Yes. Now I understand men’s fascination with tools–and I want them all.

I have ideas. And some come as I am experimenting. New plans for mobiles and books, fabric prints, and painting. The flood is a rush. For three focused hours  last night, I illustrated the cover of my first handmade journal. Then began experimenting with wrapped baling wire on a paper mâché bonsai that has been languishing since the beginning of the summer. This morning, I smile at my efforts.I draw the new ideas that have come since. I had found my artistic energy. This is creativity and it is a drive, not a want– a need. More than an expression of personal taste, a voice expressing those things that cannot be said any other way.

I wish you all a way and a habit of connecting with your creative self however that is manifested.