I have not been attentive to my blog this last month and nor to my paintings and it is time I talked a little more candidly about why. It has been a challenging winter, far more than I would have expected on many levels – some beyond the art. Sometimes the weight of the world, our work and our personal struggles can take the spark out of us.
This series on historic houses and rooms and the pressure I put on myself to produce the best work I could to honour them has been emotionally and physically draining for me. I have such passion for the people and places this series has brought into my life and it was almost more than I could bear. What’s more, there has been a lot of loss in the last year. What I did, I felt was never good enough. For a couple of months, I could not face the work, the stories or the photos…The light and the energy was gone from me and I struggled with extreme exhaustion. There were more days than I care to count where I could barely convince myself to get out of bed. I could barely eat and slept poorly.
As the days grow longer, the sunlight has been slowly able to creep back into those abandoned corners of my Soul. My stories have waited patiently as I have slept and dreamed and as I try to heal my body. I am not by any means feeling myself yet, but, the desire to return to the easel is increasingly powerful. I am ready to work again, albeit slowly. I have finished the planning stages and started on the final leg of the series. This is not to say that I will not be painting the old buildings anymore – on the contrary! But I will be looking at things a little differently in order to not burn myself out again. I also want to tell a little more than one might just ‘see’. Their timber bones and peeling paint will always whisper to me and I will always be compelled to share their stories.
With the sun in force and Spring on the horizon, it seems that I need a kick to get going again and the best way to do that is to post a work in progress. I am ambivalent about posting the ‘ugly stage’ of a painting. As I know many of my readers are not necessarily artists, I wonder what they think? Either way, it does put a fire under my butt to finish a painting and get it posted. So here we go…
Work In Progress – Crystal’s Room © 2010 Michelle Basic Hendry
Crystals’ Room is another painting from the “Twilight” house. Tom Iddison told me that this room was his daughter Crystal’s favourite because of the comfortable bed that once was in it. When I visited, the room had a small wardrobe with a few articles of clothing and this chair with an old coat draped across it. Many of the objects that are outside the picture frame make it appear that someone came in to quickly change their clothes and left again. But the world and time has caught up. The house has since been sold and its future, uncertain.
I love the sense of possibility that the almost all white window has…
Glad to see you back at it.
You keep on doing what you need to do to heal. Life is for living – not pressure to perform! Take care.
Thanks for the candour. So many people think art is some sort of holiday, but if you’re serious, it is such a long road in many ways, and yet you soldier on. It’s good to see another blog post (yay!) and ever WIP takes a certain kind of courage, laying it on the line and making a public commitment.
From comment #3 “Thanks for the candor. So many people think art is some sort of holiday, but if you’re serious, it is such a long road in many ways, and yet you soldier on.”
I’d like to second that sentiment. And, the short dark days of winter can add to the struggle. But, spring is coming and there will be better days ahead.
I know how you feel about sharing a WIP. I try to avoid it, as well. It can have its own rewards, however. I’m sure the finished product will be lovely.
I also know about burning onesself out, of course. It’s not easy finding a balance, but it IS a good idea.
Don’t worry about anything until you’re better (& don’t worry about anything then, either. Worry is a waste of energy that changes nothing.) Just get better soon. Please feel free to pop me an e-mail if you ever need an ear (or eye?) to bend. *hugs*
Once I knew only darkness and stillness… my life was without past or future… but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.
Helen Keller