Living the Life of an Artist
Blue jays are making a horrible racket. I counted about 25 of them. I know some people would hate to hear this, but I’d like to shoot a dozen or so. They are annoying and distracting. Today is the start of Cornell University’s Bird Count. I’ve seen 3 cardinals, 5 robins, and a chickadee this morning.
I have a lot to do today, however, and can’t spend all day bird watching. “Heron Dance,” a… I’m not sure what to call it, but I get “Reflections from a Wild Artist” from it every day and today he was talking about the cantankerousness of artists. (www.herondance.org.) There was a quote from John Lennon from an interview he did one time and he mentioned the selfishness of artists.
I can understand that. I often think about and question my selfishness. How selfish am I? And how it is said, “It’s all about me.” I think about my irritation at being interrupted when I need to get my mother something. I can be very bitchy when I am not able to work on my art, especially as one little interruption will throw me off for the whole day. Most of the time, I can’t even stop to eat because once I take a break, I can’t seem to get back to it. Then I get upset with myself and will tend to take it out on others when they try to talk to me.
The life of an artist is very emotional and part of that turmoil goes into every piece we do; no matter what type of art we do. It’s very personal. It’s like we are putting ourselves out there for the world to see and oftentimes, the world cannot understand it and throws it back in our face. We are misunderstood, so artists tend to “act out” and do totally outrageous things.
For me, when I do a charcoal drawing, there is that desire to make something beautiful, to take a photograph and put my own artistic spin on it. I want to share the beauty from a different perspective. Even in the photography work itself, I am attempting to share moments of awe with that child like joy of discovery. I am inspired and excited. So much of what catches my eye is like finding buried treasure. In those moments I am soooo happy. Then I crash when others do not see it as I do, when they cannot understand the joy. When I am that happy, I want to share that feeling and I am disappointed when they don’t get it.
I crawl back in my hole and don’t come out for days.