Well, I’d hope to have done the second installment of Tools of the Trade this past month but, wow, my motivation level has taken a major hit. Has yours too?
A Chinese curse goes, “May you live in interesting times.” When I first heard it I thought, “Hmm why is that a curse,” but now that we’ve seen over 7 months of 2020 I don’t need to wonder why it’s a curse anymore.
Looking back at the beginning of this year I was excited about entering my first art show, winning an award, and then being invited to join the Fredericksburg Art Guild and move my art “career” to the next level. I’d no sooner signed up and paid my first quarter dues when BAM! the two-week and now nearly six-month quarantine hits.
We, humans, are quite resilient, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, what I’d hoped to be an in-person workshop ended up being my first Zoom classes with Jeannette MacDonald from Studio Comfort Texas. I also managed to take an online course from Michael Solovyev, and I’ve spent a lot of time on YouTube viewing a LOT of different painting and drawing techniques.
I try to paint and draw every Monday through Saturday and have done so although on some days it’s more a case of grabbing my sketchbook and practicing ink or pencil lines.
Art Is a Lonely Endeavor
Anyone who is an artist, illustrator, graphic designer, etc. will tell you that art is a lonely endeavor. Even if we’re surrounded by fellow artists in cubicles or family or friends art is something that comes from inside and when we put pencil or brush to paper or canvas we are moving what and who we are from inside to outside. To do that we tend to be wrapped up into our own worlds.
BUT WE ARE HUMAN
That being said, artists, like ALL human beings are social animals. Oh yes, we may be able to go off into our studios for hours or days at a time and create but at some point, we must come out of our “caves” and rub elbows with the rest of humanity. We need the camaraderie that only being around our fellow humans can fulfill.
Two Things
It’s one thing for we artists to go into our studios by choice and spend time creating; it’s an entirely another thing to be told we must stay away from the world, stay indoors, and away from people. Oh yes, I know it’s all for our own good. No one wants to make another person sick or be the cause of someone’s death; we’re artists, not sociopaths.
Artists take what they see from the world, interpret it, then show that interpretation in their art. If we can’t see the world then we’re at a loss.
I think back on the freedom of sitting in a restaurant or cafe with a pen and my sketchbook in hand sketching people and things. Sometimes I was alone and sometimes I was with my partner for life. Other times I was with a small group of like-minded artists enjoying the sunshine and camaraderie of fellow practitioners.
Then there was the freedom of jumping into our pickup truck, driving through the Hill Country, and finding something worthy of my sketchbook. I long for those days of freedom—I think we all do.
Photographs
Thank goodness for photographs to help with portraits and landscapes…but after a while, we need more. There’s only so much we can do with a photograph. There are only so many still life sketches and paintings we can do.
Strange Times
These strange times make it tough to be motivated. I struggle with dragging my old tired butt into the studio on some days not because I don’t want to make art…it’s because I’m ready for a change of pace…a change of venue. My wife and partner of 45 years now is climbing the walls and to be a bit honest, driving me crazy wanting to just GET OUT!
Well, I do too. We’d originally had plans to travel in our new Oliver Travel Trailer to Alabama for a rally in May then head north to Canada to meet our best friends in Calgary for the Stampede. We were all going to then take our time and head East to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the annual Air Venture Fly-in and then head up to the International Lumberjack Competition in early August.
Every one of those plans was shot in the butt, canceled, and/or postponed.
At the end of the day, hopefully, we’ll look back on this and evaluate whether quarantine and masks and dehumanizing one another have been worth it. We’ll know at some point in the future whether the deaths were as high, or higher than we have heard or been led to believe. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll know if all this was really worth it and whether the next time a new virus rears its ugly face we’ll just spit in its eye and go about our business…or do all this over again and live in isolation. If so…God Help Us.