Catching the ideas…

Today was a day spent on search of self, ie. creative voice, and thought. In an effort to rekindle my creative side, I decided it was a good time to move my art things from a crappy box into a nice storage tub. It was fun to go through my art. I remember ever piece vividly. What I was thinking, where I was, what it meant… what it was meant to be. I organized it a bit. Then I reread some good parts of The Creative License… surfed the web and came across Tommy Kane’s website. I love his stuff.

So from all that, I’m feeling pretty inspired (yes again), along with the Elizabeth Gilbert talk… I’ve been thinking about my stuff. My style, my voice. I like to make things that are representational… things that combine my passions and skills and I’ve come up with some pretty fun ideas of projects. One part of The Creative License features some stuff on Bob Dylan. At one point, Dylan says, “Make art… give it away, make some more.” I like that. I like the idea of sharing my creations (even more so than the side blog) instead of stuffing them away in a bin. So I’m going to make my things and open up a small shop. Either on Etsy or on my soon to be live, personal website. Make a little money maybe and give my things to someone who will appreciate them… and then when I’m famous, they can sell them on ebay for millions.

I’ve had a lot of big ideas… and let them go. A lot of great ideas for series of writings, paintings, etc. and let them go… but not any more. This time they will be brought to life, and through this, I think I’ll acheive a lot of goals I’ve set for myself personally, mainly, to know who I am and to be comfortable with who that is. It’s what my soul needs to find peace and happiness in myself and my life. I can’t wait to get started!

Oh, and on a side note, I’m going to my first ever guitar lesson tonight! Exciting!

Couldn’t have said it better…

What I have come to realize… in the last few short months, is that my self judgments, do not stem from myself, they were all things at one time, that someone else told me were not ok, or that even at some point I THOUGHT someone THOUGHT about me… the true challenge is to free yourself of this burden of judgment, and to truly love yourself… this is happiness!! Damn the man, that shit doesn’t make you, you… YOU DECIDE… YOU!

This was posted on a “friend’s” blog on MySpace. I went to school with her, that is really the extent of our friendship… and for the first time, I read her blog. That post tugged right at my heart and soul. It’s what I’m dealing with right now. Breaking free of expectations and roles that I may or may not have placed on myself. I’m a girlfriend, a sister, a daughter, a designer, a business owner, a friend, a writer, an artist, a reader, a thinker, a twenty-something struggling with this “quarter-life crisis” fun. I’m a lot of things. And I associate expectations with these things. The true challenge really is to free yourself. To ask yourself, who am I? Who do I want to be? What will it take, from me, to get to that point?

When I broke down the other day, I was feeling the weight of all of these expectations, all the pressure. External and internal. I admitted that I knew most of it was self-imposed. Just like she said, things I thought others thought about me or said to me. One of the most freeing things I’ve realized in the last few months is that I don’t have to answer to anyone. I get a speeding ticket, I don’t get my car taken away, I don’t have to hear a lecture. I’m an adult. I can do as I please, it’s my life. It’s freeing. But what would make it better, is if I could let go of all these ingrained expectations. I wrote a piece today called Sometimes I Wonder and it’s on my side blog. It’s about losing that creative force that drove me so long ago. Feeling like I’ve lost it… One of the biggest expectations and pressure I put on myself is living up to society’s standards of an artist. Living up to what I think M thinks makes a good artist… his mom, the community, you bloggers…

What’s funny is, I can not place the point at which I decided I had to live up to some sort of standard. I can not remember a moment where someone said something to me about my art, or my writing, that made me feel like it wasn’t good enough. So this major one, is 100% self imposed. This is insecurity and probably comes from me being so private with my work. Never sharing… never received feedback and not only did I not feel good about my work, I didn’t grow. And eventually, that part of me faded away. Like Danny Gregory talks about, as kids, we don’t worry at all about whether or not we “can” draw. All kids draw. All kids make things. As adults… that sort of fades away. I guess it’s self comparison at it’s worst, comparing myself to someone I think is better. But instead of using that to push me forward… I simply stopped.

And wondering “where it went to” is really silly. It’s there… the feeling that I “can’t” comes from worry that it won’t live up to what I think it has to. So how do I get rid of this? I accept the challenge she talks about, the challenge of freeing myself from this burden of judgment… but how do I do it? Take a look at my expectations? Where they come from and whether or not I want them around? Do I just commit from this point forward to be true only to myself and who I am? To love myself regardless of whether I meet other’s expectations? To promise myself that I won’t worry about those people and what they think? That’s asking a little much of someone who also feels a struggle to figure out who she is… maybe that’s where I need to start. Who am I? Who do I want to be? And what will it take to get there?