How Lucky Am I!

I have been a full time artist for nearly 10 years and quite honestly it scares me how quickly time has flown it definitely hasn’t been easy and I’m still learning how to strike the balance between making money with my art and growing my skills while enjoying my art practice. To my partner’s chagrin I’m constantly watching videos and listening to pod casts about how to be a successful full time artist and the amount of rules and conflicting advice is confusing and often sends me into a spiral of self doubt, I’ve tried a lot of things that haven’t felt right or completely failed so I have to remember it’s important for me to know where I fit in when listening to advice…do I fit into their targeted audience or probably more importantly do I want to fit?

I am not a business woman or an intellectual I have quite a scatty brain, I like to call it a ‘creative brain’ I am easily distracted and get bored quite quickly, I’m led by my desires and curiosities so despite the advice of sticking to one genre, subject matter, medium, size, substrate etc etc I find that hard, variety is they say ‘the spice of life’ and is what keeps me interested so the only thing that makes me happy is to follow my heart and impulses.

Consequently I often flit between painting with acrylics and sculpting in my handmade paper clay because it’s these two things that give me the most joy but I’ve always wanted to improve my skills particularly my painting technique and recently through Instagram I made a new artist friend who lives nearby called Sally Ellis as soon as I saw her work I was in love with her style, she has such a free loose approach to her still life abstract painting which leaves her pieces looking rich with texture and spirit, her still lifes have a movement, drama and vibrancy which I love so when she asked me to join her in a painting day in her beautiful house in Bewdley I was there in a flash!

So now after that day of discovery I have embraced the art of making art with an open heart and mind which is giving me more joy than I have ever felt before, I find my process is easier and fun and even if I paint with a subject in mind I am still pleasantly surprised by the finished results because I am letting the paint and marks dictate the outcome. Also to add to the list of things I like to do I now have still life painting which is something I want to develop further.

It’s funny I always thought life would get easier the older you got but as I reach 55 years I have only recently realised it doesn’t, in fact the opposite is true it seems but what does get easier is self acceptance and when I look back on the journey I am on I see that despite the difficulties I have been true to myself and followed my heart which just makes me feel so grateful for where I am and all that I have.