Where I pursue the simpler pleasures of life...The afternoon was like every other, sitting at my desk in the studio after lunch with iTunes playing on the laptop behind me. Actually I wasn’t sitting AT the desk, but was facing away from it with my chair back and my feet resting on the small 2 step ladder that serves as my foot stool, deciding whether I would read, or close my eyes and “rest”. I looked at the shelves to my left and saw the row of black loose-leaf notebooks that held the photos and slides of my work from the 1980s to the present, as well as promotional material I created during those years. It was all designed to promote my art and create a measure of commercial success. That was when my AHA moment occurred, in an instant, without any previous thought or inclination.
The content of those binders represented a chapter in my life that was ending, if not ended. I no longer have any interest in spending my time and energy pursuing ambitions to get into important galleries or museum shows. As long as that is a conscious goal it is almost impossible to escape the pressure, which is always tucked away in some corner of the mind, to be influenced by what one thinks a gallery, or the art world in general, wants to see. Looking back, I think I’ve done a pretty good job and maintaining my independence and doing my own thing, but even so, I felt the pressure. In that brief moment, the pressure disappeared, and I was flooded with a sense of liberation, and it was great!
Actually this was a process that had been going on for several years…consciously working to remove myself from those pressures and ambitions, but in that moment, it moved from my head to my heart.
I have no intention of giving up my art, and every intention of making it better. I will continue to market/promote myself and my art., but on my own terms, as I see fit.
1 comment:
two thumbs up. As long as you can avoid becoming your own worst critic, you should find success on your own terms.
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