My addiction

Vizier

Arches oil paper

22.5 x 15 inches

oil, cold wax, lithograph pencil 

Every artist seeks recognition. Otherwise why make the work? Without an audience we are just creating visual soliloquies in the dark, alone, hiding our star. 

Look at social media. The lure of seeing "how many likes and comments" we received on a post.  It's addictive. And it can damage our ability to take those necessary risks that push our work from mediocre to something truly real and sublime. 

If trapped by "recognition" we can actually watch our singular, extraordinary genius swirl down the drain into the pool of the ordinary. 

Making work to please an audience instead of pleasing ourselves is a death sentence to our authenticity. The first person that needs to recognize our work is us. We need to aim to work "above ourselves in order that we may be able to live with ourselves." Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm a victim of this internet disease. I use facebook and instagram to promote my work, but I can't help myself from checking my posts to see how they are "trending". 

Elizabeth Gilbert writes in, Big Magic, that our creativity is not benign. If we don't listen and answer to our muse, she will find a way to lead us into a dark, unhappy place.

We will try to quiet her by anesthetizing ourselves with some other form of addiction, most of which are not going to do us any favors: alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, spending addiction, king midas addiction. They're all around us. We see and hear about them every day. 

Its hard work and scary to develop your creative self. Doubt swirls around like a smoke ring whispering; do you even know what you're doing? why? who cares?

 But if we can gather the courage to just do it anyway, Wow, we can create some amazing stuff. We see it around us every day.  It is joyful and makes us happy.

When hesitating to go into my studio for a laundry basket full of excuses I remind myself; this is my one life, my one chance; do not deny it.