This Sunday we were supposed to make something together within 365ers-2012 group. The idea was to highlight a major inspiration in our life/work, this happened to occur at the same time as a I am having (yet another) one of my work/life lows. So instead of forcing and contriving something I thought of writing about where I stand at the moment and that might help me forward. At least I know there are people supporting me in my endeavours and they might have some wise words for me.
I am a trained anthropologist with a BA and a MA, I also have another BA in art, I speak 4 languages, I am about to finish a small qualification in joinery and me and my husband have started work with boat restoration. All this makes me feel very conflicted. My parents are pushing me into getting a 'proper' job with wages and career, my peers are all doing well in that department. I think my parent are getting hard questions by their peers who compete in who has the most successful child. My mother told me she would be so much happier if we owned our own house. We haven't found a place we want to live in so much it is wort buying a house. Mainly I want to be an artist.
Recently, thing I have tried have not worked out, my exhibition proposals have all been rejected. I seem to be able to make anything if I put my mind to it (hrm, maybe not pottery :) but I can't seem to be able to make any ways forward. My husband says that the problem is that my way of telling a story is very culture specific (balkan) in a anglo-sawxon world so there are interpretations problems. I don't know what to do about that. I also find it very hard to express my innermost emotions, mostly I want people to like me as I am extremely afraid of conflict (war refugee, what can you do). So I guess my art suffers, I feel I am making nonsense while time is passing. I also have an artistic temperament and are constantly doing something else as you can see from my very varied blog.
My husband, again, says, it takes time and patience to become a success but I only feel lost and have come to a point where I feel like quitting and taking up a job. I feel I can't make anything coherent and that I feel like I am a waste of space. How can you be so gifted and so useless at the same time?
To come back to the sunday's task, I have been racking my brain to come up with inspirations so here they are. I admire Francis Bacon and Frida Khalo for their courageous and fragile paintings, Cy Twombly for academic precision combined with artistic excellence. William Turner for landscapes with feelings, Jackson Pollock for expressiveness and force, Leonardo da Vinci for beauty, Caravaggio for drama, Schiele for fragility, van Gogh for colors, Alice Kettle for amazing textiles, Chris Berens for imagination, Rothko for peace, Frances Woodman for otherwordliness and there are so many more, each and one very special in their own way..Inspiration comes from such unexpected places, having a FB group has been something that has made me very happy and kept me inspired and most of the time I am happy and grateful for everything I have but sometimes I just feel lost, like I am supposed to do something with all of it and I am not getting the hint. The blog was supposed to help me to get more focused but as 100th day is looming I feel I am just running in circles.
So this has been a bit of a rant but I feel better for it:) My good friend Carolin advises to make small plans and stick to it, but all those have fallen through at the moment so I guess I have to get myself up on that horse again...I better go and make something..
