Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Throwing Art Away

To throw away or not to throw away...When art is so bad there is no recourse but to throw it away. Back some months ago, how long--I have no idea, I hung up a white sheet of 20"x30" pastel paper on my dinning room wall, taped off the outside so the paper would stay on the wall and so I could create a border on the finished piece. I started with a plain brown planter, added a half moon red table on which the pot sat. That's as far as the painting went for months. I didn't like the pot. It was too brown, too plain, too whatever. I should have added the flowers first and then put in the pot between the leaves and petals. Too late now. Such a nagging little thought, but it haunted me. Each day I walked by the painting on my way to the kitchen and out the door for work. After a while I successfully ignored the painting; actually forgot about it until one day inspiration hit and I tried to add some blue and grey flowers above the pot to soften it a bit. No good. Surveying my work from across the room I was disappointed. The blue and grey flowers on top of the brown pot now resembled an ice cream cone. Ugh!! Where had my creativity gone? Had it been bested by a brown pot? It certainly seemed so. Weeks, months went by and again a spark of inspiration came. This time I would cover my mistake with wedges of bright blue and red. The result was terrible--an insult to the eye. Can art go from worse to much worse? Yes, yes it can and mine did. The painting still hangs in the dinning room, still is purposely ignored. I cannot think of anything that would salvage the painting at this point other than wading it up and throwing it in the garbage. I think it would be best for the sake of my creativity to throw it out. But would throwing it out allow me to forget about it and move on at this point? I hope so.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Creating Art: What are you doing about it?

So I've hit a long dry spell in creating art. Why create if no one is buying? I don't need to fill my home with paintings waiting to be bought. What about you? What about people who happen upon my blog or who mean to happen upon it because they too are interested in creating art. I understand writers block--being a freelance writer and having worked as a reporter for a local daily. I understand how to break through the writers block barrier (yes, I meant to be redundant for emphasis), but when it comes to creating art, which takes up a lot more space literally how do I break through? How do you? Please share your thoughts on this topic.

I almost turned off the TV (creativity killer) and worked on a couple of pieces I have had in the works since last year. One was the painting I started for my brother when I found out he and his partner were having a committment ceremony last August. It was supposed to be a gift for them. I never told my brother about it because as I was setting down the layers of oil paint on the canvas, which had been wrapped in plastic my brush picked up random cat hairs, which were then embedded into the painting. I'm not sure if the static on the canvas drew the cat hairs into the paint or if my cats had been using the brushes with which to comb their faces.After trying to rub off several cat hairs, I decided to put the project on hold until I could devise a way to deal with all the cat hair. Help! It's too late now because the paint has long since dried and the cat hair is unremovable unless I turpentine the whole thing and start over. I won't be starting over.

Then there is the oil pastel which has been taped to the dinning room wall for at least six months. I can usually finish an oil pastel in one sitting. I wanted it to be a painting of lovely moon-glow roses with plenty of grey and blues in it. I started by drawing the pot that the flowers would be in--a plain brown planter. This was disasterous for me because it killed my creativity. I realized there was no way to hide the pot and I didn't like the pot so I didn't continue. So there it hangs a pot on a red table cloth and plenty of unpainted white paper on the wall. Maybe I should go back to trading cards. I was much better at smaller works and didn't get so overwhelmed.

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