Art practice

I am learning how to do freehand protraits–relying less on a grid and training my eyes and my pencil. I still need to work on proportions, but the results have been surprising. Did you know that turning a picture upside down will actually help you focus more on shapes and lines and will give you a more satisfying rendition than if you are looking directly at a thing? For most of 2023, I had to practice at home by myself as my energy would often run out and I would end up having to skip art classes.

Towards the end of 2023 though, I was able to attend five art classes (what luxury). It became important to me to go to class with a goal. What is it that I’m struggling with, right now? What questions can I ask and how can I put the answers to practice when I am unable to attend class?

There are so many similarities between making art and writing and life and the parallels fascinate me. Because we often start out with a draft–with an idea of where we would like to go–or in my case, I sometimes find myself caught up in an emotion and I let that emotion move my body and take me to what comes out on the canvas. I suppose I am very much a pantser on canvas as I am a pantser with words. Portraiture though is teaching me the discipline of looking and seeing and translating what I see in lines and shadows and angles on the page. We don’t know what we’re making until we see the finished project and even then, it can be tempting to keep tweaking. For the artist, the art is learning when it’s time to stop. There is no such thing as perfection in art, simply the question of: have I managed to convey what I wanted to convey? And does the meaning the viewer attaches to the image make me say: Oh…that interpretation works just as well.

It is satisfying though when you get your meaning across and it’s the same with working with words. Stories work when they mean something to the maker and to the person reading or receiving the story. And in this way, stories become an act of co-creation. The writer creates the world, the characters and the story, but the reader attaches meaning to it and the art becomes the ability to draw the reader in and invite them to create together with the writer.

I’m not a very good fanfiction writer but I find myself in awe of writers of fanfiction who expand the universe and the worlds of stories that have captured their imagination. To have a fanfiction made of your work is, I think, the best possible compliment an artist can hope for. Why? Because it means you’ve made something that has become full of meaning for another person to the extent they wish to co-create with what exists.

Life itself is an act of co-creation. We co-create together with God and with our fellow inhabitants of the earth and together we weave this massive story that is the story of humanity. And it sucks a lot at times. It makes us cry and feel frustrated at times. It makes us angry. It moves us. It makes us want to hit out and hurt someone sometimes. It makes us decide to take action. Co-creating means, we don’t just let life happen. We decide to take part in life becoming.

Reading back, I think this is what 2024 is shaping up to be for me. I spent 2022 trying to stay alive, trying to recover, trying to survive. My 2023, had me learning how to deal with setbacks. It had me on a path of discovering what it was that I really wanted to keep on doing. Here I am in 2024, still alive. I am present. I am doing what I need to do, here and now…bedhead and all.

Agyamanac Unay for stopping by. May peace and love be with you.

To be amazed, to be captivated, to be moved.

Today’s workshop at Eschacon reminded me of the joy I feel when I see writers embracing their art with passion.

When I was in New York, Janis Ian talked about the obstacles that keep us from practicing our art. She also spoke of art as living–of how our lives as artists and our art practice are closely connected.

To be heartened, to be reminded, to be woken up to life, to realize that time has not stopped but is steadily moving forward. Life beckons, art calls, I can no longer live in a state of limbo–denying pain, denying agony, denying the discomfort of learning to breathe within this new skin that is my life.

It hurts to live, I said to Aliette.

Give it time, Aliette replied.

There is no hiding from pain. There is no way to bandage the wound.

In the past week, I leaned so hard on the shoulder a friend offered me, and selfishly clung to the idea that by filling up the hours with something, I would be able to move past this grief.

Pain can make us selfish–can make us forget that friendship is a two way street. Not simply taking, but also giving. It means seeing that person for who they are and caring about the things they care about too.

I am better than that. As I talked about writing from the body, about tapping into that deep well from which our stories are born, I understood how failing to acknowledge my weakness, my pain, my selfishness, my grief, was hurtful to those around me–was hurtful to my art; was hurtful to my life; was hurtful to those I cared for.

Regardless of what is offered, no matter how broad those shoulders are, it’s not right to ask a friend to carry my burden.

I must learn to accept the absence. I must learn to acknowledge that it may take time before I cease to be messed up. But I know that there are things in this world that cannot shake me. I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death. I left a loved one there. Now, I must venture forward. I have no doubt I will spend many more tears. But my shoulders are broad enough and my spirit is strong. I am here. I stand in the land of the living.