There always comes the moment, that one instant in which the Earth shifts just the tiniest bit on its axis and the realization dawns that you will use the pencil or the brush or the chalk in your hand for more than doodling.
Do you remember? Tell us.
4 comments:
I remember drawing a self-portrait from a photo years ago - long since lost - and being stunned at what I had captured. I stopped doing photo-realistic work at that time, as I felt I'd finally reached an understanding concerning my artwork. Since that time, I've embraced expressionism, and my relationship with my work has benefited greatly.
I continue to find my trip from there to here long and strange. Didn't do a 'serious' drawing until 1995, then gave it up almost as soon as I'd start. It would be another distraction from writing the great American novel. I guess we know where that went. So it wasn't until a time last fall, nearly a year ago, while drawing a picture that eventually became a Christmas gift that it occurred to me anyone outside my family might respond to my work. But I'm not getting grandiose in my thinking. I'm not trying to change the course of art or establish a new school. Not aiming for a museum wall -- just a well-executed work.
I have always loved drawing but was afraid to go full-force into the visual arts. Just in the last six months, I felt ready to make the plunge, mainly for my own intrinsic enjoyment.
I know this is an old post, but a very intriguing question, and one whose responses could quite possibly fill an entire book. For me it was a longing since childhood to create art, but the fear was stronger than the need. Then, after becoming chronically ill and unable to have a traditional job, I was watching my son-in-law painting. I told him of my dream, and he said, "Then just paint". He gave me a canvas, a brush, and 3 tubes of paint. Later that year we lost him to suicide, and I inherited his studio contents. I still use them, and I know that he is with me each time I "just paint".
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