Last night, I had a Zoom call with an artist from New York, a super nice, super kind woman named Leslie Volle. She creates these fantastic works in encaustic which I admire very much, but it’s her graphite drawings of twigs that I love the most. I’m so grateful to have been able to meet her when I was taking my Praxis classes back in 2020; even more so now that she still remembers me and keeps in touch. I had ‘planned’ to write about something else for the jillablog this month but last night’s Zoom made such an impression on me I felt the thingy I was thinking about writing about could wait. In any case, I figure writing about this now might help me to process x make more sense out of it ^^ If I commence properly Somehow I managed to send Leslie a message asking her if I could maybe ask her for some advice ~ mainly because I’d been feeling a little lost lately. You know how busy artists always are ~ never enough hours in the day ~ but she agreed ^^ In a nutshell, I guess I’d been feeling a little lost because, what with one thing and another, I had to make the decision to focus most of my waning strength on my other job last year. I did manage to make a few things, but I certainly wouldn’t call 2024 my most prolific year. As you may conjecture, I made any number of excuses for this ~ that I had been recuperating x been in what I like to call ‘wounded bird mode’; that I wanted to make things without the pressure of a deadline thinking that the work would turn out better (whatever that means). That I wanted to ‘get back to basics’ and teach myself to draw again (I have an anatomy book from a friend with a PharmD degree and two figure drawing books gathering dust on my shelf). That I wanted to just make whatever I felt like without ‘having to stick to a theme (i.e. for a show)’. Buuut this is me at a digital marketing agency taking care of a team of writers again whilst sticking my fingers into other pies (i.e. ads, email marketing, websites, etc). As anyone in advertising or marketing will tell you, long hours really just come with the territory. Not too long ago, this wouldn’t have been a ‘problem’. I’d simply go to work, do the job, chug a can of Bull and jump right back into the studio (AND, if I was lucky, maybe sleep for a couple of hours and then rinse and repeat). But I’m older now, and, our ex-prior did tell me I had to get some sleep (if only to avoid a stroke, he said), so… less time for *arting*. Miss you like the sun misses the flowerLeslie asked me whether I missed it ~ or well, I think she did; in any case, I remember replying that there are so many things I still wanted to make (だから I can’t die yet). I told her about that draw one thing a day thing I’d been doing but that lately (since the new year started) I hadn’t been able to do even that. And I admitted that it had been some time since I’d put brush to paper (or canvas). And that it felt lousy. (Like a doggo made to wear clothes.) I also told Leslie about a couple of disconcerting things I’d heard (and read) recently. The first was a remark from an old high school friend who asked me why I didn’t just paint whenever I felt like it, or to relax ~ like how she just cooks things to make herself feel better. The second was from a complete stranger online, who said that, after all, all of this was ‘just a very expensive hobby’ I should’ve given up on a year in as soon as I figured out it wasn’t making me any real money. First of all, Leslie got it. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to finally be able to talk to somebody who gets it. At the end of the day, I guess, a kitty can’t talk to a doggo about kitty issues. I also told Leslie about having been *judged* for having a day job by an artist who told me not too long ago that if I had been ‘really serious’, I wouldn’t even have another job and solely depend on my art for the food on my table and the roof over my head. Not long after telling me this, that same artist was frantically asking me whether I knew someone, anyone who could buy his paintings because a relative was in the hospital. (This, I hadn’t told Leslie, was said practically in the same breath as ‘Look at me, I’ve got all these collectors…’) What I did tell Leslie was that that was precisely the kind of thing that made me have a day job in the first place. So sue me if I happen to like having a roof over my head and food on my table (which is just my desk, actually lol) and I’m not crazy enough to assume my monsters can get it for me on a regular basis. Leslie got it again. In fact, she told me she doesn’t know anyone (like us) who didn’t have a day job ~ even this one artist she told me about who hadn’t let go of his (very cool) job even after he’d ‘made it’ (of course, his being loaded to begin with didn’t hurt either ^^) By then I was feeling like a doggo whose hooman was patting him on the head like the Destroyer was patting the raccoon after the (barely) talking tree died. Amazing, isn’t it? I mean, what a few kind words can do. What did she say? She said ~~ that maybe it was a good thing to not make anything for a long enough while to get to the point of missing it ~ so that you really feel like you just gotta ~ do it. I think it’s no coincidence that I heard in the past couple days (I think it was in this audiobook by St Alphonsus de Liguori) something like, aridity or tepidity is meant to keep you humble. I guess if I had made things non-stop I might have given myself airs like ‘wow I’m so productive’ or something. And Leslie said that ~ or rather reminded me ~ that all artists get this or rather, get like this, sometimes. Because ultimately, we work alone ~ I guess, even the folks who do collaborative stuff, even with just one other person ~ they’re alone with themselves or each other. And I guess the more we make stuff, the more we’re alone and I guess, that whole Nomanisan (would you care for more mimosa ^^) thing ~ it can get to you after a while (I’m pretty sure I remember it got to Vincent). She also reminded me that groups or communities were good for artists ~ I told her that, out of nowhere x on the spur of the moment I allowed myself to be railroaded (lol) into renewing my Ang INK membership a couple weeks or so back. (When I did I felt a twinge of the old anxiety again (cos people) but I rationalised it away by saying it might be good for me x the push I need to, you know ~ ‘shake myself from my present heaviness and sloth (for it profiteth nothing to be long anxious, to go long on thy way with heaviness of heart’.) These were things I needed to hear and it was great to hear them from a fellow artist ~ I don’t think I could’ve (or would’ve) heard them from anyone else. She also gave me great advice about if and when I ever did a show (-show) again and about a community I really ought to join and, also, to not trash talk? myself (well maybe I do I guess but then that’s only because x I really only say things that are true (or that I think are true). (Exempli gratia, like if I say I’m lazy ~ that’s because I’m binge watching old J-dramas on Netflix instead of making art.) Then she *completed the cure* by inviting me to draw her ~ she asked me if I had stuff handy ~ I always do! (which is why it’s so ~ incomprehensible, I guess why I’m sort of stuck or in a slump again now) ~ Doesn’t look a thing like her lol (whereas I could totally see myself in the drawings she made of me while I was drawing her). Leslie asked me how long it’d been since I last made anything ~ I said not since the new year, but that the last thing I’d painted was back around Halloween ~ She said it’s only been a few months (feels like years to me somehow like how last Monday feels like ages ago) and that I needed to put things in perspective. She’s not wrong ~ and, I guess I need to figure out what that perspective is or whether this is something I can even figure out for myself. I’ll have to, in any case, whether I can or not (the work alone thing, remember?). I will see you again ~ but not yetLeslie super very kindly offered to you know, make these Zooms a regular thing and I, would like that very much, actually. I’d so love to do her studio visit to see her work (we also exchanged studio visit stories heh heh) and, you know. So that I’m not ‘arting alone’ so much, I guess ^^ To wrap this month’s ramble up I guess I ought to remember my own little, exhortation of sorts when I said that it’s okay for artists to ask for help, sometimes. I’m sure glad I asked Leslie ^_^** And while I’m nowhere near as smart (whoops, I guess that counts as trash talk ごめん なさい) or something as Leslie, I’m a big believer in paying it forward if I can’t pay it back so, for what it’s worth (like a doctor who’s ill offering to heal somebody else) ~ ~ if there’s anything I can do to help you out this way, I’m here, okay ^^
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