Art Blogs

I've been reading a lot of other peoples' blogs lately, and I have to say, this foray has resonated with me. Specifically, I've been dipping into the wealth of blogs written by working artists. (And by working artists, I mean both A. artists who work really hard most of the time at their crafts, and B. artists who then make money off of said art...but mostly I mean type A.)

Even though I am, by and large, not a visual artist--drawings, paintings, sculpture, etc.--many of the artists I've been reading are. And I am amazed at how similar their working lives are to mine. I am also always amazed at how much more awesome their chronicles of their works are, compared to mine (and not just because they post pictures of their stuff!) It's kind of weird to phrase it like this, but I feel like I'm cut off from my work, like I can identify so much more with the struggles other people are going through.

Sometimes--well, okay, most of the time--I feel like my work is just so boring. I've been experiencing an abundance of creativity lately, which is really excellent, because I'm excited about writing again. And not just a little excited. I'm so full of ideas and snippets and just general excitement that my sleep is getting interrupted. The littlest thing will get me worked up so fast that (seriously) I feel ill with the strength of it. I'm frequently burning the candle at both ends, kept awake with the need to write and waking up early because I just can't lay in bed with words burning their way through me.

Yesterday, for example, I found I could not in good conscience retire to the bedroom for the night until I wrote a ballad. And so I struggled through it. I'm pretty in love with it today, but yesterday I just wanted to be able to stop. I took a couple breaks while writing it, yes, but I could not allow myself to quit before it was finished. (And even then, after that, I sat in my bed until two in the morning and scribbled frantically to capture a scene for a story before I was too exhausted to hold the pen any more.)

I'm also putting my hand in trying to create an art quilt. It's going fairly well, though I'm only in the planning stage. I'm using a couple of different traditional blocks in addition to the fancy parts. (I hate that quilting requires so much precise math! I'm terrible at figuring out how big I have to make certain pieces if I want them to come out a certain size.)


Doing so much all at once is really very tiring. But...I have found that reading about other people's works restores me. It makes me really happy to be creating things. It gets me excited about all kinds of art again. Now, if only I can control myself a little and stop missing/burning meals because I get distracted by writing.

~Later