I think there is a general misconception by the public that people like me, who tend to get involved in what we loosely called creative pursuits, simply plod along. We engage in brilliant creativity. We progress from one brilliant idea with a beginning, middle, and end,. There is a pause and then we go to the next brilliant idea.
Well obviously every idea isn’t brilliant, but when we are in our inspiration phase, sometimes we feel that it may be creating the best work we’ve ever done. However, the pauses can be a lot more lengthy. During this intermission, we feel not just uninspired, but scared to death that there will be no more brilliant ideas! The best we can hope for is to regurgitate the things that we’ve done before, the tried-and-true and perhaps the successful (monetarily speaking.)
I say we and I probably should not. Because this is just the way I feel.
So this was a lengthy lead into the feelings I am having right now.
I can always go back to painting the themes that people seem to recognize from me. But that is playing it safe. And you don’t learn and you don’t excel by playing it safe.
But then a painter, like myself, sits back and says,
- All right so how do I not play it safe?
- What do I do differently?
- Do I change my theme?
- My subject matter?
- Do I change my technique?
- Do I get more rigid or more exuberant?
- Do I paint larger or smaller?
- Do I tell a story or paint a feeling?
- Do I paint more abstractly or with more representation?
- Is the best really yet to come?
I don’t know those answers right now, but I have to believe that the best is yet to come.
Fear not! I will continue to paint, because I can’t not paint.
And you will be the first to know if I succeed in becoming inspired again. And it may be in the realm of technique and approach.
