Reading harold_maude's journal

I just finished a 3 day run at work and have come to the conclusion that working 8 plus hours a day several in a roe, is a very exausting thing to do.

Last night I was so wiped out that I started getting sick to my stomache.
I get there and go hard and no stop until I clock out.
I don't get paid enough for as much as I end up paying physically and metnally every time I clock in.

enough bitching about work...

It looks like winter has finally started thinking about settling in on this part of the world.
I would love the snow better if it didn't go in the streets and make dangerous weapons of other wise somewhat safe vehiels.
Not that would keep the people who drive like they are some deserted road from being out there, but at least it wouldn't have the option of becomming a skating rink out there.
I love to drive, except for in the winter.

That truely sucks.

Anyway, it's that time of the year and people are getting cranky and short tempered now, and so I would love to spend the rest of the winter being a bear and sleep in some cozy cave until spring.

But now is the time when we put on our heavy coats and seveal layers of clothes and wonder when the next dumping of the white stuff will take place.
It's not like when your a little kid, and the white stuff rocks and all you wanna do is play in it. Make snowmen and snow angels and go sleding.
Even the big kids like it, you can snow board and ski, and sled and make snowmen and snow angels too, although they are bigger due to the fact that you can reach higher and have longer legs.

Finished another painting this morning, but I think I'm going to
do a kind of frame to put it on. I'm thinking do a second painting that's a bit larger underneath and then put the first one on the second.
It will be the first I've ever done like that and it may look really awesome and open up some interesting places to explore.

The more I think about it, the more I don't want to teach the three classes I'm commited to.
I don't think that anyone who doesn't have the drive to commit to persuing watercolor should take an off hand one time class.
That doesn't do the media justice and most people who take a class in something you can spend a life time exploring and still not learn all there is, walk away with what ever from.

I know that's just my opinion, but shit, I see it all the time.
These people who get a wile hair because they are bored and need a new pastime so they decide their gonna take a class.
So they go buy all this stuff, and then never use it after the class is done.
It kind of pisses me off, but I guess it's not my problem.

I've spent the majority of my life studing art and emersing myself in the wonders of it, and I'm over the top when it comes to being passionate about it. I know what doing it ever day produces.
Inspiration comes so rarely. And when it's not there and your working your ass off anyway to keep your skills honed and tight, when it does come, it's amazing.
Your so ready for it and it's like an orgasm.
But it doesn't get like that if a person only does it when their in the mood.
Fuck that shit. You can't only do it when your in the mood.
I've never met a musician who only played when they were in the mood.
Waiting around for in the mood is like only writing when you have maybe a workable thing.
You have to discipline yourself to do it every day. There is no other way to approach art or music or writing.
Anything else makes all that a hobby.
And if it's only a hobby then it doesn't matter, you might as well be out fishing or going to the movies, or playing parchesy.

I know I'm a fanatic when it comes to art. I'm not ashamed of that.
I love it even when I'm so dry I have to force myself to sit there and put the hours in.
I've had so many dry times. And it wasn't until I got into watercolor that I finally understood the value of daily painting.
I used to ride waves of inspiration. They would last for about six months and then I'd move on to something else.
And the new thing would always produce this thing,
an excitment and that would be the inspiration that would be the driving force.
Then I hit that ten year block where I did no drawing, but alot of quilting and beading.

After I stared in watercolor, there was such a huge flow of creative force behind the work. I was producing lots and lots of work. Then I hit my first dry spell. It's scared the shit out of me.
I couldn't deal with another 10 years of no drawing or painting.
So I painting everyday. Did alot of geometric work.
Just to keep painting.
I didn't care if it looked like shit, I didn't care if I had to do it that way for the rest of my life. I wasn't going to loose something this good.
And it payed off.
The next time of ispiration hit and it was amazing. I was right there.
What a rush. What a ride.
And the finished work was amazing.
It kind of looks like something related to tolkens world.

It convinced me why it's so important to do every day. No matter how much you don't want to, or don't feel like it.
And the really amazing thing about it is that anyone, I mean anyone can take any thread of the arts and do that.

All it takes is learning how to use the tools and then find out where your creative leadings are and go for it.
In the beginning when your first working with it, your going to do alot of things that will look not so ok.
but that's ok. Your learning a new thing.
Save that stuff.
Use it to see how far you've grown in six months, a year.

There is this quote from a guy named balzac:
"Waiting for inspiration is an act of vanity, one must
pick up the materials and get one's hands dirty"

That's where it is. Just doing it. No excuses. After a while it will become a passion.
I get tired of hearing from people that they arn't creative.
I'd like to shove that shit down some dark hole,
because it isn't true.
We are all creative in one way or another.

I've heard this too in defining creativity, I can't draw a straight line, well that's what rules are for.

People are so scared of making mistakes, and they want it all perfect.
It doesn't happen that way. You make lots of mistakes. They have a lot to teach you.
There is so much that you can learn from those things.
But people don't see that.
They want their errasers and trash can handy so they can get rid of some of the most important work they will ever do.
They want to look polished and perfect and I want to scream when I hear all that comming out of people's mouths.

I say, learn to love your artistic mistakes. They are like the road map to learn about your creativity.
With out them you won't get to be polished.
With out them you don't grow, you just sit there, still in that same stupid scared state, and wish they could paint like that.

I guess this is the night for airing pet peeves....

Just once I would love it if someone who said they had no creative ablity would decided to persuse some art venu, and do it every day. And even if their stuff looked like junk to the rest of the world, they would do it anyway.
Just once I would love to see some ordinary person do that.
It would make me think there are people out there who are breaking out of boxes their teachers as small children put them into.

I figure if more people did art of some kind there would be less people fighting about things that have nothing of value.
There would be less aimless people out there.
And you could take anyone with stress in their lives and teach them how to relax by doing art.

Another thing that really frustrates me is people who try to reproduce them selves artisticly in the people they teach.
That's just wrong.

A teacher, a good one is simply a guide.
that's all.
You can't teach someone their creativity. You can only show them how the tools work.
that's all.
and it doesn't matter if the student ends up being better than the teacher. In fact, I think the theacher would do right by hoping and expecting the student to supass them.
Look ,
we're here for just a little while.

You get to do only for a little while. It's part of the deal to pass your stuff on.
You can't take it with you, so why not aim to make the next person or people comming up behind you better than you were able to achieve.
Why be greedy?
What does that get you except the personality of scrooge and who wants to die a scrooge?

I want to find a student that I can teach all I have learned to, show them everything and then tell them find your own voice, take the tools and go for it.
Makes a lot more sense than it dying with me.

I know far too many suspicious artists out there who refuse to share their knowlege except if they get paid alot of money.
And then they want to reproduce themselves in someone else.
As if they really owned it anyway.
I don't own my gifts or talents. I'm just a caretaker of them.
I love it when someone I've shared things I've learned with takes it and goes where I hadn't even considered the possiblity of going.
I've never charged money to teach anyone. And I think that's part of the reason I don't want to teach thoes 3 classes I've commited to, there is money involved.
It almost feels like I'm prostuting my gifts by getting paid for teaching how the tools work.

I don't mind selling finished works. Not that I charge alot for them. People keep telling me I don't charge enough.
what they don't understand is that I don't feel right about charging all kinds of money for something I love.

I've given away work. I used to do give it away because I felt like that was all it was worth.
I didn't think it was worth money.
I still struggle with that issue. It's hard to put a price on my art.
Not that I'm attached to finished work. I'd have no trouble burning it.
I've distroyed several works just because I felt like it.
I've had people get mad at me for doing it.
They seem to think I'm very talented. And they also seem to think it's worth alot of money.

It still blows me away when people buy my art, or prints.
There was this woman who gave me $80 a print instead of what I was asking, one was ten and the other 3 were 15.
She then appoligized for not paying me more for the prints but that was all she could afford.
I thought she was nuts. And told her so.
I even tried to give her back the extra money. But she refused.
She insisted.

I still can't understand why she would think they were worth that much.

geeze...I'm rambling again...
talkin to myself.
got motor mouth of the brain...it's a good thing this is just a journal and not a speach I'm giving at a convention or something...I'd put everyone to sleep by now.

But that's why journals are so awesome...you can write as long as you need to and when your done, you can walk away and it's ok.

Well, I guess I'll close for now...enough babbling for the night.
See ya tomorrow.

It only looks that way because your standing on your head.