Give Yourself a Break

Give yourself a break

It is hard doing art all the time.  It is difficult running your own business.  Making goals and trying to achieve them causes stress, (until you reach them).  While all of this is going on, pushing yourself can take a tole on your joy of what you do.

Sometimes, we need to stop and remember why we started creating art in the first place.  Do you remember when you first discovered art?  What was the first piece that you did?  How old where you?  My story is a bit complicated because I was raised by an artist.  I had multiple first pieces.  I used to create sunsets for family members on a small 5x7 mat board and my mother would frame it.  Each one would have a young persons hopeful phrase.  When my grandparents passed away, one came back to me.  There was also the sculpting class my mother did at a gallery.  I sculpted a small horse while she was teaching.  I looked over at what everyone else was doing, and I put it in the cooling bucket (we were working in wax and it was 80° so the water preserved it.) She had it cast for me and gave it to me at Christmas.  I was in my early teens when I did that. For some reason I put art down only to take it in college and get a fine art degree.  I put my art materials down again and didn’t touch them again until I was in my 30’s.

Finding my joy of art in pastel, that was my moment.  When I get frustrated, or tired; I need to go back to the beginning and remind myself of why I love having art in my life.  It isn’t always an epiphany, but it does put my toe back on the right track.  At that point I look to others for guidance and support.  Don’t ever discount your peers, they are not your adversaries.  You might compete with them at times, but that competition helps them grow as well.  We work alone but we are in this together.  The biggest thing I can say, and what has been told to me; “Don’t give up and don’t quit.”  Look in another direction if you must but “Keep Moving Forward”; that is Walt Disney.  He liked to encourage everyone too.