I'm an artist

I have been feeling really inspired lately to be doing something creative and artsy. I feel like I want to constantly be creating things. Paintings, drawings, writing, photographs...all of it. My hands are itching to create. This blog helps. It counts to me as doing something creative.

My weekend coming up is free and clear of plans right now and I'm thinking that I will book some time for creation. I am going to take a camera out and wander the streets taking pictures of anything and everything that catches my eye. I am going to paint and draw and write. I am going to embrace myself as an artist (a title I always fought because I didn't think I deserved it) and wear a beret and a smock. Ok just kidding - no beret or smock for me.

I only started indulging my creative fantasies about 5 years ago. I had tried off and on for years to paint or draw but felt frustrated at my extreme lack of being able to make anything look like what I wanted it to look like. I couldn't take the image out of my head and put it on canvas or paper. It never came out how I wanted it to. I had decided that I had no talent and no business trying to be an artist.

One day my hands actually ached to paint. They felt stiff and jittery like they were all hopped up on caffeine. They needed to be doing something artsy. I ignored the feeling for as long as I could and then gave in to it. I found an art store and went shopping. I didn't know what I wanted so I wandered and browsed and spent an hour just taking everything in. I picked things up, looked them over, felt them, smelled them turned them over and over in my hands. I was allowing myself to get comfortable with canvases, paint, brushes, pencils, oils, acrylics. It was exciting to be around all these supplies and to be opening my mind up to the possibility that I could do this.

I left the store with a few tiny canvases (anything bigger than 4x4 seemed big and intimidating), a few small tubes of paint (oil) and a couple of paint brushes. When I got home I put everything out on the table. I opened the tubes of paint and smelled them. I unwrapped the canvases and felt the rough surfaces. I played with the paint brushes, twirling them against the back of my hand, the inside of my wrist, my cheek, my lips. I got comfortable with having these supplies in my home, in my hands, ready to be used.

I gave up on trying to take an image from my head. I just put colour to canvas and let my hands go. My hands were what ached to paint so I let them do the work. I did swirls and waves, circles and lines, swooshes and loops. It was exhilarating to finally be doing something. Once I embraced my own abilities instead of focusing on my lack of abilities I found freedom.

It's been 5 years and my walls are covered with paintings that I have done. The biggest canvas that I have worked on is about 4 feet by 4 feet and it's one of my favourite pieces. It was commissioned by good friends of mine who have it hanging in their living room in Calgary.

I am so happy that my body knew I needed to paint and that it completely ignored my head that reasoned I could never do it. I found my own talent and I am an artist.