Last week, I took a deep breath and committed to a consultation with a mentor of mine. She charges some big bucks--probably to make sure people really listen to what she says! Actually, she charges a lot because she really, really listens well, and has a knack for pulling the key thread tangled up in all the verbiage I throw out.
I poured my heart out to her, and finally she asked the question I was dreading: "What is your greatest vision for your art?"
"I don't KNOW anymore!!!" I wailed. I described how I felt pushed and pulled in so many different directions that the thought of working on my fiber work made me feel sick to my stomach. It felt awful to lose the very thing that has centered me for the last eight years. And it felt awful to lose the focus and passion it gives me.
I told her all the shoulds and shouldn'ts running through my head the last few weeks, months, years. Decisions about how to move forward, whether to move forward were crowding out any creativity I felt with fiber. Most days, I told her, I wake up and my first instinct is "RUN AWAY!!!"
She asked me many questions, let me talk, tried to dislodge me from many "truths" I was holding she felt were way off base. I talked about my indecision about what shows to do (or even IF I should do shows.) I talked about being torn between doing fiber work or jewelry. I told about being overwhelmed with commitments and the details of running a business. I talked about writing, about blogging, about book projects, and columns. I talked about how close to failure I felt on so many levels, and what would people think if I failed? I talked about my daughter leaving home for the first time, and how much I miss her. I had so many decisions to make and how all the permutations had to be examined, questioned, weighed.
She finally put her finger on where all the anxiety and fear was coming from.
She said, "You seem to care very, very, very much what other people think of you."
Well. Yes. Yes, I do. I always have. It's always been a drag.
ALL of us care what other people think, of course, to a certain extent. And it's not always a bad thing, of course. Caring what other people think makes us consider the consequences of our actions. It can increase our sociability and our morality. It can fire our ambition and motivation. In moderation, it can be a good thing.
But it can be terrible when it comes to creating your art.
That's where I'm paralyzed right now. I thought menopause would free me from that, but it's getting worse, not better.
Deborah assured me that many people she knows are going through that mental "heat", and though she is not a doctor, she's sure eventually it will calm down. But it was time to set aside what other people's expectation of me are when it comes to my art.
So--What did **I** want?
I told her the biggest pressure I felt was that other people felt I was stuck. It's time to leave the story of the Lascaux cave behind and do something else, they tell me. The faux ivory stuff is tired and old and boring. (This from a note I received lately from another artist.) Perhaps I'm not being entirely honest with my art...? It's time to move on to something else. Something new. Something different.
"Some friends," she said wryly. "But forget about all that for now."
"What do YOU think?" she asked gently.
And I felt as if my heart would break.
"I'm not done telling that story," I said.
And there it was.
That was my simple truth.
I am not done with the story of the Lascaux cave.
It still moves me to tears. It still resonates with me. It still has meaning for me. It still has something to teach me.
Maybe some people are bored with it. But there are million people out there who haven't heard my story about the cave. I am not done with it yet.
"A million??" she exclaimed. "Only a million people who haven't heard your story??"
She told me she had recently traveled to Seoul. "Guess how many people live in Seoul?" she said. "Go ahead--guess!"
It turns out there are about 26 million people in Seoul--a big city in a very small country, she pointed out. And none of them have yet heard me tell the story of the Lascaux cave, and what it means to me.
She also told me the story of an artist who has spent the last 30 years painting nine glass bottles. Jon says the story is in this book called OLD MASTERS AND YOUNG GENIUSES: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity by David W. Galenson which you can see here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0691121095/ref=sib_dp_pt/002-8047587-2074401
That simple truth, that gentle permission to follow MY heart and not worry what other people think, was enough to raise a huge pressure off my heart.
We talked other other issues--how to make bigger work without sacrificing intimate detail, how to do the work without letting technical problems overwhelm the creative process. I told her about my new Shield series and how stuck I was with that. A few more questions, and I could see a new solution.
Soon I found myself with an odd and long overdue feeling:
I couldn't wait to get back into my studio and start playing with fabric compositions again.
"You have a sacred task," Deborah lectured me. "Your art is sacred, and making it is like saying a prayer. Your duty, when you make art, is to make sure nothing--NOTHING--interferes with that process."
Stop the distractions, she said. It's okay to want to write, to blog, to connect, to market, to promote, to show, to advertise, to buy, to clean, to do whatever else my business needs.
But when it's time to make art, I must do that with a full heart and and empty conscience. No guilt, no doubt, no judgment. Just joy.
And as I drove home Friday, a wonderful new thought came to me.
My new Shield series, with stories of hope overriding despair, and the need and desire for protection, a powerful idea and compelling to everyone I've introduced them to....
Because, as a friend said earlier this year, we ALL need to be protected from SOMETHING.
The Shields are for ME, too.
