Finding my way...

I've been avoiding writing. Not purposely, but on some subconscious level I didn't want to face up to the reality versus "the plan" of my arrival and work in London. But while on a recent trip to Morocco I had a lot of time to think about the way I was going about the transition from school to being a working artist. This is what I came up with:

I am only now, as I wander lost through the world, making peace with myself since the upheaval of leaving my school and the art family that came with it, landing in London (and not immediately loving it) and trying to move forward not as a paying art student -- although I will always be a student -- but as an artist. I am learning how to move slowly, to take time and take things in, without feeling the need to be fully productive every minute of every day.

I have not been productive in the way I imagined anyway -- I cringe at the lists and schedules that now lay forgotten in my sketchbook. But I have been maneuvering the London art scene in a sense, and figuring out where to go for what and why. I've had and given up a shared studio (and now paint in my room). I've visited museums and attended lectures, and finally attended a local life drawing session. I have written a first draft of a story, researching picture book illustration, and began working out the illustrations to go along with it. I have painted two small still lifes and one has made it through the first round of a competition (sadly, not the second). I'm currently working on a larger self-portrait -- part of the end-of-life series I plan to create. I'm finally doing color charts. It all sounds good, I sound busy -- but I've found it hard to keep my own schedule and it has been a struggle the whole way.

But as I sit here I realize that transitioning from school to independent artist, and from the U.S. to the U.K., is not unlike cleaning house: It takes a while to dust off the cobwebs and sweep the floor, pull down the old wallpaper and wash the grime off the windows. Things must be collected and sorted and rearranged and put away. And in between all these things there is a lot of sitting. At least that's how I clean. Frequent pauses to survey the mess and wonder how I'll ever sort through it. But somewhere in that process, the true nature of the room comes forth. These past few months have been a lot like that for me. I've been doing an internal cleaning of sorts. And it takes time. And downtime. But my nature as an artist is taking shape, and not a moment -- seemingly productive or not -- has been wasted.