The hiatus being finally over, I have taken up another challenge. This time it’s the 30 in 30 Challenge, that is 30 paintings in 30 days, the inspiration of Leslie Saeta over on her blog Slices of Life.
I know, it’s been some time since I’ve been here, and yes there was all sorts of things going on. Plenty of distractions for me to lose myself in.
You will hear about it in due time, my friends. In due time.
Until then I will leave you with my first entry in this latest painting foray. Needless to say I am already late with the goods.
Happy Monday, friends! Remember when I was up against a long, on going argument with Mr. Resistance? Well, it’s still on. And it’s on with a vengeance. Is it possible to ever get out of this hole I’ve found myself in?
One thing leads to another, and the next, and the other, and before you know it-down the rabbit hole with only a tiny view of the sky above. It’s my own fault. I let it happen. I get involved in other things and my own stuff gets pushed aside.
Call it procrastination. Call it resistance. Call it lazy. Well, I wouldn’t call it lazy, but I know there’s another word for it out there. I am, by no means, a lazy person. Not at all. However, I do stand in my own way. That’s resistance.
It seems that reading all the books in the world, trying all the tricks in the books, can’t help an artist like me when in deep distraction.
So okay, here it is, you’re probably thinking: Finally, she’s going to tell me what is going on. Right?
I put up with a good amount of resistance most days, which is my usual thing. I’ve even been good at beating it back lately. All good. This time of year I volunteer at my church for their big Greek festival, in the flea market with a friend. We get along great. The flea market is a lot of fun, but it’s work, taking all week to prepare. We really enjoy it. A group of ladies help us open bags or boxes of all manner of stuff and we ooh and ahh, and sometimes we turn our heads in horror. Other people’s discards can be treasures, and plenty of it is just plain old trash.
It was fun and now it’s over. To most people it means getting back to work. To the resistant Me, it means more resistance.
Does it make any sense to you?
Another roadblock I’ve allowed myself to stumble over is setting up a mailing list thing. I know it’s important to do. I know it’s benefits. I can’t get it done. And I’ve let the church festival take the fall for it.
Yeah, I blame the festival for my non-mailing list, and for my non-painting. And while we’re at it, I’ll blame the festival for keeping me from blogging here, updating anything, keeping you in my loop, and general anything.
Mr. Resistance is enjoying all of this right now, I know it.
“Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize. We don’t tell ourselves, ‘I’m never going to write my symphony.’ Instead we say, ‘I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.'”~Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
Don’t you just love that thought? Sounds like the stories my brain tells my inner-child-artist. Yes I’m totally going to get my stuff together and paint, but maybe just not right now. Today I have this, and I have that, and those things. Tomorrow is going to be THE day.
After a hiatus, resulting from the wonderful Mr. Resistance hanging around, I was able to push a little work to get some things moving. Cleaning and organizing the studio (not really) helps, sometimes.
Cagey? Yes. There’s a lot going on here. Easter in the Orthodox church, came late this year, on the same day as Cinco de Mayo and a family member’s birthday, all at once. The following week was Mother’s Day. Next up is graduations, Memorial Day weekend, and from the holiday weekend to the next is that massive Flea Market in the Greek Festival at our church.
Painting? Unless I’m a wizard, wave my magic paint brush, and paint something in a quick twenty minutes like I used to do, it ain’t happening any time soon.
But photography did occur. And since I can’t figure out how to post here from my phone, I needed to use the desktop.
“Resistance by definition is self-sabotage. but there’s a parallel peril that must also be guarded against: sabotage by others.” ~Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
Overcoming resistance is one of the hardest things an artist can do to preserve some creative sanity. I am well aware of all of that.
The interesting thing Pressfield suggests in this chapter is that resistance can come from the people around us. He writes here that when an artist gets the ball rolling, all systems are go and working, the people close to her become “moody or sullen.” This is a strange phenomenon. Family members, spouses can remark that the artist has become a different person. The closer the connection, the more bizarre their reactions and emotions.
This is sabotage from the outside.
It’s bad enough we have our own ways of stopping the creativity in it’s tracks, now we have to watch out for our loved ones’ barbs. Yikes!
Keeping our artist-selves out of that mire can be so debilitating, we may as well just stay there, stuck. The only thing we can do, says Pressfield, is to keep moving.
Next up: The Symptoms of Resistance. This should be fun.
“Resistance is most powerful at the finish line.”
~Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
This particular chapter kicked me in the gut stronger than some of the others for the sheer truth of this statement. It’s a long one so I will summarize some of it.
If you can recall the ancient Greek story of the Odyssey, with the main character, Odysseus, traveling around the world for ten years trying to get back home to his wife and family. Every time he set out for home after some wild escapade, he ran into another adventure.
“Odysseus was almost home years before his actual homecoming. Ithaca was in sight, close enough that the sailors could see the smoke of their families’ fires on shore,” writes Pressfield.
What does Odysseus do? He takes a “snooze,” long enough for his men to lose it. They grab his sack, that they believed contained gold. But when they cut it open, they let loose the Winds, which were bottled up for him by King Aeolus.
These gale force winds were unleashed, sending the ships back across the oceans they had fought so hard to travel, causing Odysseus further trials before he finally reached home.
“The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, Resistance knows we’re about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it’s got.
The professional must be alert for this counterattack. Be wary at the end. Don’t open that bag of wind.”
Having agonized over moving the old blog to this new platform for such a long time, I finally did it today. It’s Saturday, I had the time, since I don’t sleep well any more and I’m awake at 5:00AM. A wise person online said that if you want to learn how to do something go on Google and/or YouTube. How amazingly right they were! That’s what I did, except I talked to people on Twitter and Facebook, too. All great information and direction from helpful individuals.
Every post, comment, and image moved over here with ease. It was so simple I’m ashamed at how awkward and apprehensive I was about actually doing the move. Computers are scary pieces of equipment. It’s not enough there’s so much to learn, it has to give me a heart attack while it does it’s thing.
With that said, I want to welcome my old Blogger pals to WordPress and hope the adventure here will be enjoyable for all of us. As I said back at the old blog, the scenic route is usually the prettiest. And yes, the coffee is still hot here, too.
Sorting out the hows and whys of dodging Mr. Resistance has become a full time job. I wish I could say painting is my full time job, but that’d be a stretch considering I spend plenty of time resisting it.
Weird, right? But so it is.
Surfing the idiot net today in search of inspiration, and using that excuse, I found this wonderful cartoon on the Hyperallergic.com site titled Is Procrastination Productive? Funny how my daily schedule is just like this cartoon, art vs anything other than art. It’s ridiculous, but it’s the truth in it that makes this hilarious.
Yes, wow and The War of Art in the same sentence! I know you will want to know why and I’m about to explain. As you’ve noticed, I’ve been re-reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, to get my mojo back in action. It’s not an easy thing to push aside resistance and overwhelm. It’s the bane of an artist’s life. Mr. Resistance drops by with Mrs. Overwhelm and they end up having a party at my place without my permission. They’re lousy house guests, too, leaving all manner of distress in my house.
My quest for artistic sanity began quite a while ago when I decided I needed to purchase and work with The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. Breaking through artist block with various tasks was a welcome relief to the drudgery that comes with the fear of making a mess of a lovely, perfectly white canvas.
Read it, did it, passed the test. I hummed along quite well, for a while, working on my paintings in small segments of time, mostly twenty minutes. Worked well until it happened one day that it didn’t work.
What are you going to do? It happens.
In comes another great book, The War of Art. The kick butt writing style of Steven Pressfield and how he over comes resistance helped me get back on the horse, so to speak. All good. Until it happened again. Dead stop.
I don’t know how that works, but it works really well to stop me from getting anything worthwhile done. Yeah, Mr. and Mrs. Pain-in-my-neck show up and it’s over. But lately, they don’t stay as long as they had in the past. With my copy of Pressfield’s book close by, and writing about it here, I’m back.
So for the Wow part: Here I am, writing my little blog, working hard on developing this new platform, discussing my displeasure with Mr. Resistance when I received an email to my brand, spanking new dot com email address. I didn’t think it even worked. Mr. Pressfield’s literary representative contacted me saying she read my blogpost about his book, and would I like a few copies of it along with two others he wrote.
Would I? I was doing back flips! Yes I would, and thank you so very much! They arrived last week. I was so excited I couldn’t even think straight to start reading.
I need to breathe.
I’ve decided to have a little fun with my lovely gifts by spreading the love, the words, and wonderful direction these books can bring artists of all stripes. First I have to figure out the what and the how of the idea in my head. And if WordPress acts nicely and cooperates, we can enjoy a little contest of sorts.
Sunday was a beautiful day here in New York. Finally some sun, and a little bit of warmth. Perfect for me because I spent the day as a participant in the Greek Independence Day Parade in Manhattan on 5th Avenue. Greece began their war for independence from the Ottoman Turks in 1821 for their 400 years of slavery, on March 25. Yearly the parade celebrates this event close to the actual date. Usually we are all freezing as we wait to step off. Side streets in Manhattan pack amazing winds!
Since I was a kid, give or take one or two for whatever reason, I’ve marched in this parade. In recent years, as some of you might remember, my family and I march with the traditional Greek dance troupe we perform with. They have the most amazing authentic costumes, and it’s a treat to parade in all the finery. Most of the fine, more intricate pieces were originally wedding clothes, or for special occasions.
This year, in particular, was special for me because Son #1, Gorgeous and the Princess also marched. And the Princess, at two and a half years old, walked the whole parade from 64th to 79th Street in costume with her little Greek flag. Precious!
We had a wonderful time, but now it’s Monday and I’ve got to get back to work. Another week of fun and games with Mr. Resistance. Wish me luck.
