Pens and Time

Earthly Midnight

Many a late night when I could not sleep due to an anxiety of one type or another. This grew from my heavy heart and cluttered mind onto this lovely canvas. The green was inspired by a blade of grass from my lawn than landed on it as I painted the black background sitting in the yard on my blanket. Inspiration comes from everywhere ... :)

Mountain of Melancholy

Its been a minute....

It has truly been a minute since I last posted but perhaps it is time to explain why.

Quite frankly I feel like the happier I am, the less I am able to put my passions into my creativity. Perhaps I am looking at it the wrong way but its as if all that write, make, create, or whatever, has lost its full meaning. Like I am empty and my work is a bit of fraud.

Times like these I feel like I am an "artist" and not an ARTIST.

The distinction is this:

"artist" : a person who says they're an artist but really just kinda messes around with "art" or "artistic expression" like its just a hobby

ARTIST: a person who says they're an artist, and lives and breathes their artistic expression. Their art is their baby, their legacy that comes from the depths of their souls to the public arena for all to see and be affected by.

Times like now, where I am not feeling as inspired to create as an ARTIST, I tend to not like ANYTHING I make.

One might say I am simply being too critical of myself, but now when I talk of being an artist I feel like I am being a fraud because lately I havent created anything I would deem worth while but beauty is, after all, in the eye of the beholder.

So the point I guess is this, I am experiencing some sort of existential angst about my art, so I publish almost none of it. I mean this in all regards too, I don't like my paintings right now, and I don't even think what I'm writing right at this second is worth the server space let alone publishing it but I thought I would lay it all out there...

If you are still reading thank you, and I hope you continue to follow my blog.

If anyone would like to commission a piece from me, I am sure I would still find inspiration enough to make you something you would love, that is of course if you like what I have posted here.

Thoughts and comments are most appreciated. :)

What inspires you?

What inspires you? That is the question that came to my mind this lovely morning (or afternoon depending on your time zone) out here at Priest Lake. It is my last full day here before I fly back to DC tomorrow morning, but since first day that I truly got to lay my eyes on the beauty and grandeur of this place, I knew I was in love with it. Seems sad to leave it so soon, but I found the peaceful movement of the water, the mountains and trees surrounding it, and the wild life, to be quite inspirational but I could not really find the words until today.

I knew I wanted to express that warm feeling I felt inside that this view inspired...

Then it occurred to me to ask the question: what inspires you?

Sure it is different for everyone and even for me it depends on the day, the week, the month, the year. Still I wanted to answer the question.

so here is a list of the things that I find inspiring:

• Quotes, preferably the love kind.  Quotes I love by Mother Theresa: "The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread." or "If you judge people, you have no time to love them"
• Music, whenever I paint, I listen to music. Even if I feel no inspiration at all, I turn on some music and if I'm not painting, then I'm dancing.
• A nice glass of wine, nothing really needs to be added to that, but again when I paint, it helps a great deal.
• Church/Prayer: The Lord is one of my biggest inspirations. As I've said in a few instances in my life, all the forms of artistic expression that I take part in (dance, writing, painting, etc) are my forms of prayer and thanks to him.
• My son: Although it is harder to concentrate on things when he's around being rambunctious as ever, I still find inspiration from all that storm of energy he possesses. 
• Scenery like the one I'm witnessing now. When I get back I'll upload the pictures just so you can see what I mean. 

There is the list, what inspires you? Feel free to share! Have a wonderful day!!