Stone Cold Crazy

...and learning to accept it. That's the great thing about getting older. I am perhaps a little wiser and am definitely more patient than when I was younger, but essentially I am the same chubby-kneed little girl, feeling awkward with every self conscious, over-analyzed breath. I think maybe that's just the way it is for us who fall on the hyper self aware, and excruciatingly sensitive side of the fence. I is always going to be a leetle crazy (and just you wait until those menopausal hormones hit! I have heard the tales from those older & wiser than myself). But like I said, I am learning to accept it. It, meaning myself as I am, nervous twitches, mad passions and all. One step forward, a little shuffle back and a lurch to the side, but always moving forward towards allowing myself to be myself without recrimination. And the greater the acceptance, the more humour and calm.

Example: Yesterday I posted an artwork in an online workshop for feedback. This is always slightly nervous making. Less so, the more I do it (the first time I needed a stiff drink and a lie down after I had, gripping that mouse like a rope over a precipice, finally willed myself to click send), but still you are putting yourself out there in a very tangible and personal way and it ain't easy.  So I posted, and I waited. Nothing. The teachers in this workshop are always incredibly prompt with feedback (and also always very kind and fair, but y'know that's a lot for my crazy brain to remember), and so I started to get anxious, checking my email with increasing frequency as the hours went by. Nothing. Bedtime comes, and still nothing. So dear readers, where does my brain go? (bearing in mind that my brain is crazy)

Why here, of course:

They're probably just busy.


They're probably just busy.


They're probably just busy.


MAYBE IT IS THE WORST PIECE OF ART THEY HAVE EVER SEEN, AND THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY.


 No, no, no they're probably just busy.


They ALWAYS give feedback really fast. IT IS SO AWFUL, THEY CAN'T EVEN FORMULATE A RESPONSE. THEIR EYES ARE SO OFFENDED, THEIR BRAINS ARE SO BOGGLED, THEY ARE IN UTTER DISBELIEF! THEY CAN'T EVEN FATHOM HOW AWFUL IT IS AND SO THEY ARE SAYING NOTHING IN ORDER TO BE POLITE (and because of the boggled brains problem, obviously).

OK...so yeah. Welcome to my brain. So I went back and analyzed that artwork very carefully. I can see flaws. I narrowed it down to 3 things I would change slightly, but just slightly, and in all I like it. I achieved the look and feel I wanted. I am quite happy with it. So Ms Crazy Brain decided that even if the teachers, who are great teachers whose talents and opinions I respect very much, don't like it, that I still do like it and that's alright, and with that Ms CB took herself off to bed and didn't give it another thought. Because while I am so crazy that I can certainly entertain the thought that I have possibly created the WORST PIECE OF ARTWORK EVER KNOWN TO MANKIND, I am also just crazy enough to decide I like it anyway. So I went to bed with a light heart, watched a little tele, fell asleep reading some Terry Pratchett and forgot all about my Anguish and Suspense, and my poor little artwork.

Until this morning when, still without a response, it occurred to me to maybe double check that I was subscribed to the feedback discussion in the first place...

Oh, you totally know how this ends without my even telling you.

Ms CB was not subscribed. There had been overwhelmingly positive feedback from my teacher within an hour of my posting, and then many more comments and compliments from my fellow classmates all so glowing that I was blushing at the screen and didn't even know how to properly respond (but that's a whole different flavour of crazy for another day).

What the hell is the moral of this story? And why have I wasted half a morning telling it?

That getting older, while still no less full of angst and self doubt, I am more and more ready to own my place in the universe, and if that place is Maker of Art So Bad It Renders the Viewer Speechless OR Maker of Art That Garners Kind Words & Praise...so be it. I'll be making art either way...and making stupid blunders...and jumping to crazy conclusions...and agonizing and analyzing, persevering and proselytizing because that's just me.

Each of us inevitable; Each of us limitless - each of us with his or her right upon the earth; Each of us allowed the eternal purports of the earth; Each of us here as divinely as any is here. 

-Walt Whitman.

The artwork in question...

Obsolescence, 9"x11" mixed media on canvas board