Blood, Sweat, Tears…and Happy Accidents

As an artist, you have these grandiose ideas of what you want to do.  You see it in your mind’s eye.   You dream about it, day and night, you figure out how you can make it look like you see it looking in your head.  You try different things.  If you’re lucky, you can make it look like that.  If you’re really lucky, you’ll have a happy accident—not what you intended AT ALL—and have it come out even better than what you see in your head.

I’m going to share something with you now that is a vulnerable piece of me, the artist (looks around, then in a stage whisper): I don’t always have it together.   Artwork doesn’t always come out accompanied by the sound of flaming trumpets with heavenly light shining down.  In fact, that’s pretty rare.  More often, there’s a ton of blood, sweat and tears that goes into each creation—stuff that you don’t see in the finished product.  But it’s there.  And it gives those pieces a strength, an integrity that easier pieces that you can knock off in an afternoon don’t quite have.   They mean a lot to me.  Whenever I look at the finished product, I don’t see only the finished product—I see the story behind it.  The long, sometimes painful, behind-the-scenes process that I went through to birth this image.  But like any mother, damn, it feels incredible to hold what you made in your hands!

When I was trying to come up with ideas for my website, I had a conversation with my partner and the idea of a stage came up.  I fell in absolute love with the idea—YES!  One stage, where the art, the news, the bio, the contact info came when you clicked on each menu item.   It fit with my performer theme, it fit the concept of an art website, it was organized well—it was a perfect idea!

The execution, on the other hand…not quite so perfect.  I came up with a sketch of an outline for the stage—very whimsical, kind of Art Nouveau.  I was happy with it.  I scanned it in, recreated it in Illustrator and PhotoShop, built a digital image of the stage, had my web guru put it up on my site with a “coming soon” graphic.  And I sat with it.  And I sat with it.  And…yes, I sat with it some more.  And I realized that I’m not as happy with it as I was originally.  I like it, but I’m not in love with it.   And for something that represents my art to the world, I damn well better be in love with it.

So…back to the drawing board.  Literally.  I am now drawing sketches on illustration board for a new stage.  Less whimsical, more realistic, more solid, more lifelike, more painterly—I want to do it in oils, just like I painted my logo in oils.  I may do some detail work with collage elements, if I can find or come up with things that speak to it.  But I am EXCITED!!   I’ve been working on some collages lately (in order to advertise for an upcoming workshop that I’ll be teaching), utilizing paint, found objects, pen and ink as well as pictures and paper glued on.  And it’s such a rich medium, brings so much depth to a piece…it’s seeping its way into my consciousness, my work.   This, I love.  This happy accident is completely fortuitous.  And I think this one’s going to work very well.

You won’t see it, but hidden in the heavenly spotlight shining down, there will be blood, sweat and tears on the floor of that stage.   And it’ll be all the more gorgeous for it.

See you onstage, lovelies!