Sometimes You Need to Shake Things Up

Sometimes...you feel stuck in your old ways.

Sometimes...your art just seems to be going nowhere.

Sometimes...you can't find inspiration even when it's delivered to you in a paper bag.

Sometimes...you just have to shake things up.

For quite a while now I have been kicking around the idea of shifting gears, shaking myself up.  Oh, not where it comes to being a painter, but in the subject matter. 

It's such an insignificant thing, really.  For me, I was so used to promoting myself as a landscape painter -- even with the abstract paintings -- that I didn't think I could be interested in painting anything else.  But one day I realized that a tiny idea had been growing, day by day.  Could I?  Should I?

It took a bit of recklessness.  I mean, after investing so much energy in working in one general direction, it felt like I was avoiding something.  Like...maybe I was just afraid of failure so if I jumped on some other bandwagon it would help postpone the inevitable.

Isn't it funny how we can so easily talk ourselves into or out of things, using some very logical arguments, when what we're really doing is playing it safe.  But I've decided that I'm too -- well, mature -- to continue playing it safe.  And you'll never really know what you are capable of until you try.

Besides, failures are easily disposed of with no one the wiser.

Comments

[Jan]

I'm wondering how you got into blogging, as an additional expression of your work? Or to satisfy that other creative urge, writing? My wife is the painter and I'd like to do some blogging about art, especially hers, but I can't seem to figure out how it is done - nearing 70 and always interested in ancient history, I initially took your blog to be about archeology - be well, Jan

[Deborah Ross]

You go, girl!!

[miki willa]

I discovered your blog about six weeks ago and you have really been an inspiration. I am well over 50, and didn't really start painting regularly until I was in my early 50's.
I really appreciate your comments about shaking things up. I started out wanting to do landscapes, but ended up doing still lifes for a long time. Now I do landscapes and am thinking a still life would be very nice again.
Your slide show is great. I really like these paintings, especially the square format. I may have to give that a try.

[sue]

Casey - Congratulations on joining the "Club"! It just gets better from "50" and beyond.

Bonnie - Your recollection is right -- I did a "Red Onion" painting along with a few others several months ago - my first experimentation with the Daily Painting concept. Right now I am really drawn to the square format because of the way it pushes a slightly more contemporary composition. Most of these images are 6x6 or 8x8 and I've been learning a lot by doing them. Thanks for the encouragement relating them to landscape - now that you mention it, I can see the connections.

[Casey Klahn]

You do as you please, Sue! I find myself in the same quandaries. Since I am only in one gallery, and have pared my fairs down to 2 or 3, I feel like new directions are on the horizon with subjects and styles. Who knows?

BTW, I have officially moved, since September, into the artist-over-fifty category, so I'll be hanging out here more often!

[Bonnie Luria]

Sue- I recall seeing a red onion on your earlier blog posts or perhaps it was a link on your blog to some of your work, and just loving how you approached it. The colors, the essence of the vegetable.
I hope that recollection is correct.
But anyway, these still life studies are little landscapes too. You take what you know and apply it to a fruit. It could be a rock. Your eyes interpret the same.

The slide show is a wonderful addition.

It's good to stretch the boundaries.