Making art again

“She Likes To Pick Flowers On A Cloudy Day”

Here’s what has been touching me deeply and making me sad. Since I started posting pictures of my art on Instagram and Facebook I can’t tell you how many people have written to me and said, “You’re so brave, I wish I could make art, but I’m too afraid…” This just breaks my heart. And I write to them straight-away and say “You CAN make art, DO IT!” and I tell them all the things I’ve said in these last days, it doesn’t take hardly any money at all — I use a pencil, a black pen, and a child’s watercolor set. You can get these things at the Dollar Store or cheaply on amazon. And then most important, don’t judge what you can do against what you see anyone else doing. You do you, and that is absolutely perfect!

When I started drawing in the spring of 2013, just before turning 59, I was really just doodly-dooing about. I made a circle. I put in eyes. a nose, and a funny lopsided mouth. It was lumpy and bumpy and cattywompus and lopsided, and “The 100 Ladies Project” was born. I drew those Ladies for 5 years and loved them dearly but I never got past just drawing their heads because I could sort of DO that. Bodies, whole pictures? Oh no. Finally, it’s why I stopped doing them. They were fun but they had run their course. I put them aside and didn’t do anything at all because I didn’t know what to do. I finally decided I needed to jump in, and even though I don’t know how to draw people who really look like people, and I don’t know how to draw whole bodies and hands are a nightmare, if I didn’t try I’d never get past a thousand funky heads with stories. I have realized that I have started to draw someone who is my alter-ego. I am drawing my life, and in the process I am feeling a kind of deep compassion for myself that I haven’t been able to come to any other way. And they are lumpy and bumpy and cattywompus and lopsided. It seems that’s just how I draw, what I am able to do. I’m further along than just drawing heads, I have moved into uncharted territory for me, but with each drawing I do I gain a little more confidence. I don’t believe I will ever stop now.

Not long after the fire in 2014 I taught a class called “The Spontaneous Art & Life Project & Women’s Circle.” I absolutely loved it. About 30 women signed on and while I only did the project for about 6 months because I was just so overwhelmed and devastated after the fire the women’s circle stayed together until just last December when I finally closed it. It was one of the most wonderful things I ever did, I made friends for life with those women, it was an amazing experience. And it is something I still get contacted about to this day. People want to do it, they ask me if I will resurrect it, and I have always said no. With the resurgence of my work, as I wrote about yesterday, it is one of the things I am thinking about bringing back. It was important work for a lot of people, it was a joy to create and to teach. I would have to re-evaluate what I want to do with it but I think it was worth considering.

What I want most for people is to open their hearts to every bit of joy that they possibly can, and for many that means finally making art, something they have longed to do for much of their lives but are afraid to try, they lack confidence and belief in themselves. The project was a combination of art and writing. Here’s what I wrote at the top of that page…

“PLEASE READ THIS ONE STATEMENT IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE! Before you turn away because you think you are not a writer or an artist, and you don’t want to be, know this — you don’t have to be. A stick figure and a few simple words are enough. This process is about shifting something in your brain and in your heart so that your life can be transformed, so that you can heal, so that you can find and live the life you have dreamed of and hoped for. Let me explain…”

Life is short, and it passes all too quickly, and I am here to tell you that if this is something you have always longed to do but never had the confidence to try you better start right now! or you will regret it. They say that at the end of life, as people are dying, they don’t so much regret the things that they did but the things that they didn’t do. Please don’t let that be you. Pick up a pencil or pen and start to doodly-doo your way to more happiness than you may have ever dreamed possible. As I ask my students all the time, “If not, why not? If not now, when?” I am asking you the same thing.

And if you are interested in a revised, updated version of “The Spontaneous Art & Life Project” let me know. If enough people are interested I will get it in the works. It might just be time to begin again.

And if you are afraid write to me in the comments below and tell me all the reasons you are NOT making art. I will then tell you why those reasons don’t hold water and I will help you get started!