Shhhh! Starving Artist at Work
Art has made history come alive! The art of writing has been only a small realm of recording history but, have you ever noticed that when something visual, tangible and touchable is found that describes the written word it is examined and re-examined, admired, hung in a prominent place, and has a big price tag attached to it. It is protected, financially insured, and often even stolen.
Yet, accept for a few exceptions, the artists were little known in there day. They were more then likely “Starving Artists”. They worked hard and earned little. Yet, their creativity compelled them to continue, drove them to build, sculpt, paint, create or die.
I know the feeling. I was born with that innate desire to pursue the new and unusual, the beautiful whether magnificent in simplicity or in grandeur, in the natural or in abstract. I can’t help it! I’m propelled to create by my aching brain that visualizes faster then my hands can make. I am compelled by sleepless nights of mental architecture and driven by instant brain flashes of what could be!
I feel exhilarated by new ideas of visual expression and equally deflated by other people’s blank expressions, uncomprehending and lethargic.
When I was a child, I spent many hours playing in the woods behind our house. I built cedar rail play houses, tied maple saplings together and wove fern plants to make natural living shelters. I dreamed of building houses in trees or of living underground. I used to lie in our loft and visualize living in a barn or a house of hay. I drew pictures and sewed bits of fabric. I created castles out of pebbles, wonderful towns out of sand and igloos out of snow. I painted, cut and glued!
None of that may seem terribly creative or artistic until a person grows up and the possibilities broaden, the abilities become more refined, and the dreams and visions begin to intensify. Then, life for an artist becomes an unstoppable freight train of ideas that are bursting the dams of the cultural norm.
I want to scream it out! “I want to create! I want to build! I want to be sew! I want to paint and sculpt! I want to be free!”
But like most people considered normal, I must refrain from being too exuberant! I have to remember, Its a fact that most people don’t get what they cannot see thus they will not lend support! I must then create only within my limited means and remember that living in a remote artist’s paradise makes showing and selling near impossible to the world outside of my little space. Like most artists of the past, I too, am a restrained “Starving Artist” loving the unconventional and living in a surreal world of artmanship within my own brain.
If only you could picture what I see!!
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