...is always something that is rewarding yet stressful at the same time for me.
I love to browse my stuff and find stash I have already forgotten about (because it has been shoved to the back of a shelf to make room for something new), as this can be quite inspiring, but on the other hand it often also always leaves me quite angry about myself - knowing that I have been buying more stuff than I use up for already too long.
Why can't I simply use and be content with what I already have at home? There's more than enough stuff there to create for decades without running out of material and media.
I have this suspicion that I feel a creative already when buying the new fab, craftsy stuff - which is a lie if you look at it closely. As if "owning" the coolest and latest media and stamps already counts as being creative with them...often these items lie in my studio for months before I finally use them. I often ask myself - when re-finding them - why I had bought them....there must have been something that made me buy...no, need them, right?
Then most of the time I find that it must have been a project I had seen on someone else's blog or fb, that made me buy it. As if that would be all that's needed to be able to also shine like a star out there with something just as beautiful. It's a bit as if I try to disguise as someone else...someone who had this brilliantly creative idea and imagination to create that amazing piece of art that made me want that stuff and artsy genius too...
But I am me - and that also shows with my personal creative "handwriting". I could, of course, copy that project and reproduce the style or colour scheme or whatever it was that grabbed my attention, but that's not what I am aiming for I found. I don't want a copy of someone else's project - I want their very imagination, I guess. As if buying the products that artist used, already sparked the same creative genius and images in me...how silly to act and think that way! Even if it is an unconscious thing.
Why not have the courage to discover my very own artistic handwriting and hunt down ideas in my own head? What is it that still makes me hide behind the styles of others and in a way wanting to be and appear like someone else artistically? Wouldn't I just be telling their artistic stories instead of my own? So why do I think that way? Is it fear? Fear of what? Of showing myself as who I really am? Sometimes I think I act this way because my mind is blank and I have no story to tell as an artist (which I feel especially when I have been struggling with aching joints and feeling exhausted for too long). I believe that you can only create good art if you have something to tell (visually). Something that drives you and that needs to be expressed....what, if I don't have any of that? What, if I am just a big BLANK?
What am I afraid of? What do I expect to happen, if I start following my own road as an artist? That no one will want to see? But shouldn't I be creating for myself in the first place? Have I lost track of myself by giving in to tiny glances of quick and guaranteed "mini-success" out there by following the latest trends, imitating popular styles and using the latest techniques and media?
Maybe I have. And maybe that is not just a bad thing - as it feels good and also helps build up self confidence - knowing that you are able to master techniques and media of many kinds. But the danger with this is that you can easily loose track of your own personal path as an artist and that your inner voice somehow gets silenced by having stayed in ones comfort zone for way too long. And then it is hard to let go of something you have gotten used to and feel safe with.
The courage to create something unpopular - simply because I feel I HAVE TO create it; where do I find that? Can this be approached in small steps so it becomes less intimidating? I hope so.
