OW I had an Epiphany

And considering it weighed 937 lbs, i'm surprised it didn't hurt more---- SNARF!

 Okay, what i mean is my sketchbooks combined probably weigh that, the point being i have always driven myself crazy, to distraction, to depression, to total abandonment of my talents because i'm "not good enough", by thinking that because i have all these ideas and sketches and plans that i must do them all.

Well, where the hell is the contract i signed that says that??? If things lurk in the closet with the fabric or slink under the cutting table and slither behind the bookcase, you can bet it's guilt and  shame that let them loose in that room. And who self induced those slimy things??????

SO, if the act of sketching it frees it from the ether, the clouds, the recesses of my strange brain and it languishes in the UFO drawer or squeezed between the pages and it never gets birthed, it has however let me concentrate on creating other things. Maybe we're not meant to bring every seed to fruition: some have to die back and rot to nourish the soil.

I'm giving myself permission to have the ideas and to choose which ones are the passionate response i  am compelled to  make. (See the previous entry :)!)

Comments

[sharonb]

Arlee - a sketchbook is a place to capture ideas - not a to do list -
its the compost heap of creativity - you need good soil to grow anything

[arlee]

You got it Babe! Over the years my sketchbooks became compost piles alright, but not in a fertile sense--perhaps more the kitchen middens of old days with all kinds of junk, literal and figurative! I don't know why it took so long to figure out the simple truth that i don't have to do something if i don't want to---i've applied that everywhere else but only now to my artistic "life"! DUH! We are our own worst critics and our worst enemies sometimes, the monster who lurks in the closet!