Not for Sale... Yet
Normally, I'm constantly flooded with inspiration and ideas, like all artists. I have the 'seeds' of great paintings in a hundred sketchbooks, on the backs of envelopes, in my photo library, and usually I have to choose between them, to pick out one over the other... it's a great thing. HowEVER. ... when a deadline looms... when I want/have to have a selection of work for a show, etc. I can get frozen in front of the easel. It happened last weekend. I have a lot of pieces I want to bring somewhere. New pieces. I had SO many ideas ... but when it came time to prep the panels my ideas dried up. I dried up!
So I took the pressure off by going through my 40,000 images on my computer. (I know, I know... get them off the computer...) Didn't help. I tried just plowing through and starting a painting - even though I wasn't excited about it - *wipe*wipe*wipe*. I tried music... looking at my favorite historical artists.. nuthin... my current living artist hero's... nope... I 'dialed a friend'... uh uh.... I had some swedish fish.... then had to brush my teeth... all diversionary tactics. What happened to my zillions of paintings in my head?
Why do we freeze when the creative process gets 'direction' like this? Eventually I just started a few pieces, with NO HOPE that they'd turn in to anything.. and I lost the self consciousness, and slowly got lost in the work, and things started to flow.
Regarding the name of this piece: When I named my first son Rory, the old Irish ladies in the neighborhood would sing to me "Rory, get your Dory, there's a herring in the Bay..." - he'll want to kill me if he ever reads this, I'm sure.
:)
