Creativity cannot be seized
Creativity cannot be seized
On the gray skies of January, art shows, and stalking the muse.
January has been a slow month for me, art-wise. Partly, I knew, I was recovering from the push to complete two final pieces to submit for The Art of Planetary Science (happily, all three submissions were accepted to this juried show!), plus the holidays, which are more draining on me as I adjust to my dad’s absence. Plus, it’s that month in southern Oregon where it’s uniformly gray and cold, and often wet. None of this makes me want to do art, I assure you.
I came across this quote early in the month, which sums up the mood nicely:
“Art cannot be seized head on, it must be stalked, it is elusive.” (Grace Hartigan)
It hasn’t been a fruitless month, however.
One night, down one of those delightful rabbit holes the internet provides—kicked off by a desire to research the paintings and artists I couldn’t readily identify on our LG TV screensaver/slideshow—I came across the works of Odilon Redon, and was captivated by his Muse on Pegasus. The riot of color delighted me, but also his sparsely-detailed Muse (and, indeed, her Pegasus.) Multiple thoughts clicked off at once, in my brain. At the figure, I realized “hey, I could do that!” (I readily profess “I’m bad at people”, and like to joke that the portraiture gene from my mother skipped over me and went straight to my kid sister, but the truth is, I just have not practiced drawing figures or people.) At the background, “this feels like creativity, visualized.” At the piece as a whole, a strange thought for me: “if I was painting a muse, she’d be flying on a rocket.”
Well, you can see where this is going.
I resolved to paint myself a muse, gave myself permission to paint a potentially “bad” or “poor” figure, and immediately created a watercolor background with a riot of color intermixing. I had the idea to subtly add symbols or representations of things that inspire me, things I love (like Star Wars, Studio Ghibli, and Sailor Moon.) I bounced the idea off my best friend Adam, and he was beyond enthusiastic (which, generally speaking, Adam is enthusiastic about most all my artistic ideas. That’s what an art buddy is for.) “You HAVE to do this!”
So I did. I painted a small nude figure flying a large silver rocket towards a thumbnail crescent moon. Floating scattered in the background, a tiny T.A.R.D.I.S. followed a Star Wars rebellion symbol. I added the Laputa crest from Sheeta’s levitation stone (Laputa Castle in the Sky), a freehand attempt at the White Tree of Gondor (Lord of the Rings), and lastly, a full-color rendering of the Eternal Moon Article transformation compact (Sailor Moon.)
And then I sat on it, struggling to post it on social media. Usually I post progress photos of my work; I shared nothing. You’d think I hadn’t done any art in January. I started to write it up, like any other finished art. I stalled, with crippling anxiety. I found myself making half-apologies; “just a silly piece for me”. I struggled to be less dismissive. What was silly about it? Why was I shrinking it, making it lesser-than?
Those that know me well, know I’ve been in counseling in recent years, and in a great “I really must jot this down and tell Dr. XYZ next time we meet” success moment, I pulled out my therapy toolbox and stepped back to look at the reaction I was having. Having assessed it, I decided it was extra important to share this piece, got up the nerve and posted it, and got some lovely feedback.
And now I’m on to some inky pieces, starting with this “wormhole”-themed piece, which I’m calling Face the Abyss:
I think that’s probably as much art as any one newsletter can handle. If you’ve read to the bottom, congratulations! If you’re interested, the new subscriber coupon is “its2023yall”, for 23% off anything in the shop.
Thanks for reading!