I've always wanted freedom to do what I want, how and when I want to do it, and yet now that I find myself free to do things my way I feel disoriented. I've always wanted to not be trapped in a 9 to 5 job to be able to make art and I´m there now. And this confuses me profoundly. Maybe its because I've not been in this situation for so long, maybe ever. So now that I'm experiencing the dream, I don´t know what to do with it. I´m reminded of how long time prisoners have a hard time navigating the world when released, so much so they oftentimes want to go back to prison as its a structure they know and that feels safe.
So I´m working on being free and that means free to make art at home and in my studio without feeling I'm not being productive in society. This is my job now, it hit me this week as I finished the watercolour of the pitahaya featured in this post.
It took me a while to finish this piece and that´s what always happens when things are working for me, (in art and in life). Like I mentioned in my previous blog post, if I can do it, I tend to abandon the work for a while. So I need to be more disciplined and complete work faster and not procrastinate so much or be so ADD with my work. On Monday I sat down for about five hours working non stop on this watercolour and then started a new one I´m making for a series that´s for sale and will not be in my upcoming exhibition. This is the path I need to take; have a schedule, a structure. As much as I want to make art more than anything else in the world, since I´m not in a formal job, it´s tempting to do other things during the day.
Today I went to the studio after about four days of not going for various reasons. I still am not used to going; I know myself, it´ll take time but I´ll get there. I put together a few objects that I'm interested in and took the photo above. I´m thinking about faith, food for healing, cells, bodies... I like this idea, I will pursue it somehow for my exhibition.
I also started some pomegranate drawings. I want to try drawing in a different way, more gestural maybe, more experimental. The photo above is the beginning of that. I've recently started to be interested in pomegranates, they have powerful health benefits. They´re also incredibly interesting and beautiful as drawing objects . And challenging. I spent a long time looking at this one- it´s so intricate!
As I said before, this blog is a way for me to create structure in my new life as a freelancer. One other way is a Pinterest board I've created that also helps me see how my body of work is looking as a whole.