And the work begins

My artistic soul has left me. It didn’t happen overnight.... it’s been slowly leaving, quietly over the past few years, even before I moved to Bellingham. I haven’t even really missed it until very recently. At first it was a great excuse because I was tired and a little burned out from being a good seller at the gallery. I could use it as a crutch not to create because I ’wasnt feeling it’. Recently I realized I didn’t even miss it. That was a scary and sobering thought as my creativeness and art are what had defined me for as long as I can remember. And it didn’t just fizzle out, it was gone gone. Dead. Not even missed.

So here I sit, wondering who I am. I’ve been burying myself in work because I love the ‘finished product’. I have targets that I need to reach, and when I do and see results it gives me great satisfaction. But I finally feel like something is missing. I’m walking like a zombie through the art supply shop downtown because It’s wanting to sneak back in, but my walls are up, built with a million bricks of excuses as to why my art has no place in this world. I didn’t go into my studio for over 3 months, and I went in there last night and ran my hands over my paints, my brushes, my crockpot of beeswax, my big metal cutter, my torches, my metalsmithing tools.... to see if anything gave me the spark and the energy I need to light that creative fire. I felt a million miles away from it all, yet it was so familiar at the same time.

Two of my art friends have recently taken the plunge to quit their day jobs to do their art full time and here I have ‘retired’ from art and gone to work with 2 jobs. I love the aspect of reaching those daily goals at work but my heart is finally a little hungry for creating. I feel so disconnected now, I don’t know where to begin. I have a studio filled with more great stuff than anyone could imagine and I sit in there, and beat myself up.

My mind is not kind to me. In fact she’s very cruel. I’m going to do some heavy emotional work with my essential oils and this book. And I’ve enrolled in class that might help invite my creative soul back to me. I need my art voice to be louder than my mean mind voice so I’m going to work on this pretty hard. If I can create again, it will be a miracle worth working for. I use essential oils to heal my body so now I’m working on my mind and soul.

I’ll keep you posted. Follow my Instagram to see more about this journey as I will be posting to my stories section.