Creating Art Again
Structures #112 (in progress)
©2010 Lisa Call
~38″ x ~38″
Textile Painting (Fabric hand dyed by the artist, cotton batting, cotton thread)
Fear
The last 3 and a half months I’ve not created much art. I tried a few times to start new artwork and selected fabrics for a few pieces.
And then I would lose steam and wander out of the studio.
While I lacked energy due to the depression, I also had a lot of fear.
After a period of time goes by without creating new artwork, I find this happens to me. I think “what if I have forgotten how to make art?”, “what if I have no ideas left?”, “what if I’m not really an artist?” etc etc.
These thoughts can keep me out of my studio for days, weeks and this time months. I was starting to think “why did I build this huge studio in my house if I’m not an artist anymore”. It was not fun.
Moving Beyond
It was with those negative thoughts floating about my brain, that I turned to my studio on monday, determined to move forward.
With the work I’ve done to move beyond my depression, it was time to move beyond the fear in the studio also.
A few days prior, I had selected a stack of brown and red fabrics to start a new textile painting, which I had abandoned. I’d done this a handful of times over the past few months. Selecting a stack of colors and then abandoning it.
Monday I had enough of myself and with no ideas on where to start (or even which series I wanted to work in) I was determined to make some artwork.
Creating Structures #112
And so I did – I picked up the first fabric and started ironing it. Hoping an idea would pop into my head.
Not much there. So I went to the second. And ideas slowly came to mind.
Structures, it’s my favorite series, I needed to return to it.
And slowly as I moved through the stack of fabrics I had the start of an idea.
I cut and pinned the background browns up on the wall (see photo #1 above) and then spent 30 minutes pondering what I would do for the lines. Red seemed boring so I tried some green, then blue, then purple. Nothing really worked and the negative thoughts were creeping back in.
I almost walked out of the studio to return at another time, defeated.
Something stopped me (myself, really, I was sick of the excuses). So I returned to my original idea of using reds and browns and selected the accents (again see the photo above). It worked and I left the studio with a sense of satisfaction.
Finishing the Design
On tues & wed I was able to cut the strips for the lines with only positive thoughts in my head. How quickly the negative voices disappeared when I gave them no power.
The result (below) was something that had potential and I was looking forward to creating the composition by sewing it together.
Thursday morning was exhilarating as I stitched the first few sections together and the design came alive with energy. Dozens of ideas for new directions, colors, lines to try out are now floating in my head.
I knew this was how it worked. All I had to do was ‘do it’ and I’d be back making art as it is what I love to do.
Fear always loses to love, when we are willing to trust ourselves.
Posted by Lisa in: Being an Artist
Tagged: fear, love, making art, structures










