this is the work

Okay lots of things happening here! All of them good.

I fly to Calgary tomorrow to be with my sister and her fam for a week. It’ll be nice to get out of town and just sift through my thoughts a little bit. Being removed from the norm is always a good thing I think, even if it’s during my favourite season and I feel a little bittersweet about missing even a week of Fall in Ontario. It’s just so beautiful.

I spent the day painting and it was gritty. It’s a gruelling process sometimes because I’m doing a lot of mental work to stay positive and not spiral the entire time I’m working. I’m grateful to have a job that allows me the flexibility to do what I need to do creatively speaking but it doesn’t mean I spend the day taking myself seriously while painting. I have to stop what I’m doing and start writing for a while to “get all the sillies out” and then pick up and move on. It’s hard to shake the dust sometimes.

November 21st is the deadline for these pieces because that is the night Hannah and I will be selling our work at 79. I don’t feel nervous about the event itself (because I love having people over) but I do feel apprehensive about the road to getting there. I probably want to add a few more fresh canvases to the mix but I can’t decide that until I’m home from the West.

I want these pieces to feel different than anything I’ve done before but I noticed today my mind slipping into ways I used to do things and I didn’t know whether to let myself go with it or actively try to forge a new neural pathway on the canvas. I’m working with a lot of fear here. The work is not easy! It’s scarier than therapy because you have to do it alone and go to the dark places all by yourself. But I think it’s worth it because making the thing is the only way to articulate and move through the process. I’m reacquainting myself with the critics, the profs, the looks you get when you tell someone you’re an artist and they ask if that’s feasible. I feel crazy most of the time.

There is a piece of paper on the wall in my room that says, “This is the work. This is the work. I love you. I love you. I love you. This is the work” and that is my mantra right now. I want to be an artist and to sell my work and the worst part about it for me is the needing to make myself visible in order to do that. So here I am.

The thumbnail below is of a piece I’m calling “Priceless Coral” currently. Coral was my maternal grandmother’s name but also Priceless Coral is a shade of pink from Home Hardware so we’re working with it. Just wanted to give you a sneak preview, although I know better than to get too attached to the way a piece looks, because it never stays that way for very long.

Here’s to beginning again and again and again.