Are You On An Art Plateau? I Am, But I'm Trying To Get Off

Out There
Oil Pastel on Paper
Copyright 2008

Hi-

Complete the following sentence:

My (painting, drawing, or whatever your creative work) makes me (contented, peaceful, sad, upset, delirious, mean, ______ )—choose one or fill in the blank with a descriptive word of your own.

You see, you must have an opinion or thought about why you “art.”

If you don’t or can’t or won’t describe what art does for or to you, then you are truly ‘in the weeds’ as they say.

Are you merely passing time with a paintbrush or stick of pastel in your hand? Unless and until you have a motive you will never (OK, almost never) unlock the creativity within you. You will simply be going through the motions of being an artist.

To put it another way, you must feel something before you can create something.

You probably won’t feel the same way about your painting et al as time goes by. In fact, I would be suspicious if that were the case. Change is good; so is growth.

Why am I blogging about this? Because I believe I reached a plateau. I seem to have been doing the ‘same old, same old’ for a long time, in art time, that is. I am doing what I am doing because I have been doing it—if that makes any sense.

I should be making art that makes me feel something.

I’m doing some reading and research into the next level of my painting—something to get me off the current plateau. If and when I can explain it, I will let you know.

I am reading about one artist who seems to make sense to me. One thing he says is that it comes from within and you must forget the notion of finishing a product.

I may or may not be on the right track. But I do know that if you (or I) have trouble completing the statement above, then it’s time to dig deeper.

Until next blog…