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Feeding the Creative Soul (Get a Hobby) by Victoria Lansford  Congratulations! You are a working artist, pursuing what you love most in the world and putting it out there! What you might have once done strictly for fun or as moonlighting, you now focus on full-time. It's gaining you recognition and money. The catch is that in order to sustain this full-time artist status, you must be creative on demand, and at some point the huge amount of energy you spend manifesting your art (and the mammoth energy you probably spend putting it out for the world to view, collect, and treasure) can lead to a feeling of "Hey, this isn't as much fun as it was when I used to do it because I felt like it," and this can lead to burn out. It's not a question of artistic integrity or authenticity. Instead, it's a challenge to find a way of feeding your soul and subsequently feeding your art. It's time to get a hobby. Do you remember when you first began learning your craft? When you first connected with that instrument? When you first put pastel to paper and saw your strokes start reflecting your internal vision? When your body began to connect the dots of someone else's choreography and suddenly you felt that you were dancing? Do you remember the first time someone mailed you a check for your artwork or performance? I was two weeks into Jewelry and Silversmithing 301, still marveling that I could make my $6 saw cut out a fern/feather shape in brass, and I knew I wanted to be a metalsmith for the rest of my life. While I was in college, I was required to study other media. I dabbled in clay, delighted in silkscreen printing, and voluntarily threw myself into logic and philosophy classes for fun, making left brain processes my hobby when my right brain needed time off for productive behavior. After I graduated, it seemed quite logical for me to continue playing with 2D and reading books on everything besides metalsmithing. Such behavior earned me more than one argument with my then husband, who thought I should be spending money and time only on metal and not the acrylics I proudly showed him after buying them on sale. I then began doing far too much math, calculating how many of something I would have to make in 'x' amount of time in order to bring the desired income. Not wanting to sell out or even be slightly commercial in my work, I thought that if I were simply disciplined enough, I could market my own aesthetic. I became a perfectionist task master of efficiency, psychologically chained at my bench all day and most of the night, working...working...working... If I did anything creative that didn't involve wire, sheet, pliers, and fire, I did it on the sly and felt guilty that I wasn't being focused. Want to read more? Subscribe to POLYSEMY. Click here to preview more articles. ©2006 POLYSEMY. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. |