Dawn Emerson, a fantastic artist, suggested I read "Art and Fear" with a certain area in mind. The quote from this book that I am going to add here is why I have posted this art piece and I will explain that after the quote:
"Fears about art making fall into two families: fears about yourself, and fears about your reception by others. In a general way, fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work, while fears about your reception by others prevent you from doing your own work."
When I read this my thought was that this was a true metaphor for LIFE and not just art.
The painting that I posted here was the first painting where I stated out loud," I am not going to sell this painting." Where we live we have a beautiful pond and waterfall and I believe this was one of my first "plein air" experiences. I walked up there with what I thought were all my supplies. I stood in the direct sun (a real no,no), no cover for my paints, sun in my eyes, sweat dripping off my nose and bugs everywhere. I gave it a good try but it just wasn't working. I beat myself up and was ready to pack it in and walk home in disgust. As I started packing up I noticed for the first time the vines hanging down in front of these gorgeous rocks. I couldn't believe I had been looking at them all along but hadn't seen them. I just put a couple of them in and presto the painting had a lot of meaning to me. It was a real ahah moment. Not to give up and to remember I was there for me to enjoy and grow and learn and not to worry about creating a masterpiece that I might be able to sell.
Bente
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