Primary Motivation

What is my primary motivation as an artist? Currently, I can see that if I could create financial security and stability as an artist, many of my distractions could be eliminated and more focus could be put on creating art. For example, I love creating a beautiful home and a beautiful yard and even enjoy teaching children art, but I could be the designer of my yard and home and hire others to do a lot of the labor, saving me lots of time.

If financial stability is a primary goal in present time, it is because it will let me focus more completely on artistic excellence. Creating art is simply an urge that has never gone away. I felt it as a child and it has continued to be important to me into adulthood. At one point, I put it aside and took a totally different kind of position. For 5 years, I did no art and focused on creating my position in the organization where I worked and although I did well and earned a good income, not doing art was actually painful to me. So it is a necessity that I earn a good income with my art, and not just a want.

Finally, recognition as an artist would be a real bonus, though I don't really crave it. A cadre of collectors who focused on and supported my my work is a new concept for me, but I really like it.

I think that Henry Moore puts it best for me when he says, “There's no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there's no end to it.” For me, experiencing life through art is all. Viewing, creating, thinking about, researching, appreciating beauty, aesthetics, art, that is simply how I live and how I want to live.

My Biggest Challenges

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” Pablo Picasso  
 
Rather than listing out the difficulties that I have in creating art, I want to describe the most success that I have had in creating art. There was a time when I created 50 large works in 2 months. It was a hot, muggy summer, but I didn't care. I was outside, off and on all day nearly every day, painting, painting, painting. Totally absorbed. It was wonderful.

So what's different now? Then I had no real responsibilities. I was married, but had no children and I wasn't working at a job. I was taking 2 classes at a university that I only had to attend 2 days a week and one of those classes was a painting class with an amazing teacher who was like a mentor to me during that time. Now I have a house, a family, pets, a job and many friends. I belong to organizations which need me to contribute my time and I have to work harder to keep my health good. Finally, I have no painting mentor now. I think that is actually key here. Having a mentor who helped me find my focus allowed me to prioritize my painting, then not having other responsibilities allowed me to pour everything into it without distraction.

How do I apply that to now? Finding a mentor would be great and not something I have really looked for in a long time. I'm so independent now that I have a consideration that I should be able to find my focus by myself. That's a whole other topic to take up at another time. I do have my own ideas, but it is great to have someone who is able to spot your good points and help you to amplify them. It's like a power source that ramps you up exponentially. If I can focus and turn on the power, then "cleaning up" my life in order to pour myself into my painting without constant interruption would be a next step.

So to simply answer the implied question of "What are my biggest challenges with regard to my art?" They are finding my focus and eliminating distractions.