Antsy

I am starting to feel very, very ANTSY.


I feel like I am about to burst or something. Do you ever feel this way? It is as if The Universe is urging me, through some strange Spiritual Barometric Pressure, to get my butt in gear and start actively shaping my life.


I have been coasting, now, for quite a while. Since finally finishing The Masters, I have simply sat back and enjoyed the ride. For perhaps too long. I do not regret taking this time to chill the fuck out. The constant pressure of having The Masters hanging over my head -- and knowing I was doing it to myself, thus creating a fantastic emotional spiral of shit -- took a huge toll on me. I needed to give myself a break. I needed to heal. To unlearn the process of constantly berating myself for being such a failure. Remember how to ignore That Voice. To gain a new perspective and forgive myself.


However, it is time to put myself out there. I am beginning to feel the atrophy of My Person. 


It is time to start painting again, and not worry about the result. Just paint. The doing. The result is NEVER what I expect (or want, truthfully) so why worry about it? 


In fact, what I am most excited about right now is finding my style. You would think that I was doing this while earning my BFA. No, no. Instead of trusting myself and accepting what my art was, I fretted and stewed. I constantly compared my work to everyone else's, and thus, learned to hate my own creations. (Yes, there will be many therapy hours devoted just to this crap.) (Also, it did not help that there was a gaggle of male painters who sort of fancied themselves as the next group of Pollock*, Calder, and de Kooning American Male Geniuses.** (BARF.) And the faculty all fell for it. It kind of sucked to be a girl in my program at the time.)


I have been drafting an email that I want to send to Black Sheeped, my friends W. and KNC, and an amazing artist just down the road from me that I discovered through Google+. I am going to ask them if they have any suggestions of exercises and advice for me as I embark on this discovery. So far, my plan is to just DRAW EVERYDAY for 30 minutes. And keep drawing. And drawing. With different materials. 


I am just going to focus on this for a while. 


It is also time to put in a serious and diligent effort into finding a new job. A. is miserable where he is and job hunting has really kicked the shit out of him. If I can find something in a new location, we can move and that would do him a world of good. 


I do not feel pressure or even responsibility to find a new job to help A. feel better. I just want to. We talk about this a lot. As far as I am concerned, it is just another manifestation of how I am loving him right now, if that makes sense. 


Besides, I am coasting an a nice, even plateau at work, and nothing sends me spiraling into boredom (and less productivity) than a plateau. It is time to move on.


So - wahoo! I am back at the wheel!


* Jackson Pollock was born in Wyoming! Connections to Wyoming never cease to make me proud.


** I am always bitter that more women aren't recognized in art history, or are recognized with the requisite preface or "woman." Just like someone is "adopted" or "black." Can't we just be human first? Sometimes those distinctions are necessary, but lately I feel like they just serve to further keep up divisional borders.  ANYWAY.