I missed doing a blog post two weeks ago. One of my younger cats, Ollie, disappeared in Greensboro for the three days prior to the blog date, and I was one totally distraught mother who spent my days and nights calling and looking and despairing. Until -- on the third night -- he came up the deck steps and walked nonchalantly into the house.... Here he is, on the right, with his brother Alex. (You might guess that I am the proud owner of a "childless cat lady" t-shirt....)
Having lived with fear for those 3 days, it's appropriate that I've been reading an older book (2001) called "Art and Fear" by David Bayles and Ted Orland. They write:
“Vision, Uncertainty, and Knowledge of Materials are inevitabilities that all artists must acknowledge and learn from: vision is always ahead of execution, knowledge of materials is your contact with reality, and uncertainty is a virtue.”
In mid-August I signed up for an online collage course created by collage artist Elizabeth St. Hilaire. She does wonderful, intricate collages, and this course sounded fun: "Funky Florals." I liked the notion of "funky" because it meant I didn't have to be a "good painter" who could paint flowers true to life. Instead, I could make up fantasy flowers and who was to say whether they were realistic or not?!
The class has progressed from week to week. I started not with a sketch like others in the course, but by doing a mockup of photocopies of real flowers (rudbekia) and leaves from my rosa rugosas in the back yard -- because I don't draw and I didn't have the slightest idea how to start sketching flowers & leaves!
Next I used tracing paper to make a sketch on newsprint....adding a flower here and there...
Then I transferred the sketch to a 12x12 canvas....
Then for practice I painted the sketch, because since 6th grade I haven't painted anything other than polymer clay jewelry and wasn't sure if I could even do it or how it would go.....
Then came "underpainting" the canvas with acrylic paints....and stenciling the different sections.... making some background and vase changes along the way.....
And NOW, finally, after five weeks, we are at the stage where we are to collage the flowers and leaves using hand-torn bits of painted paper like brush-strokes -- papers we have spent the last three weeks creating using a gel plate.... (some of mine are in the cover photo.)
And you know what? I have felt FEAR every step of the way! Fear that I can't sketch, can't paint, know what I'd like to do but am not sure I can do it because I have never done it before. And now the fear is that I may "ruin" all these five weeks of effort not being able to tear the papers properly or collage them onto the canvas in a good way.....
And if I fight through all these fears, I'll think I'll end up with something that is a sort-of attempt that copies/follows Elizabeth St. Hilaire's wonderful funky florals. It will be my own, of course, because I've made the choices all along the way within the suggestions she has given about composition and colors and techniques. But it won't be original, and I find I even have a fear of not being original!
But maybe, after a few funky florals, I will find my way to collaging a funky cat or a fantasy Vermont field -- or incorporate into colorful collages the many wonderful quotes that have had meaning for my life.
Fear is real -- it's part of life (Ollie!) and it's part of art. But I want to see what I can create! Even if it's only that I find, as Bayles and Orland said, that my "vision" was light-years off from my "execution," I want to see what will happen. Maybe my finished collage will offer a tiny glimpse of the image I envisioned when I started. Maybe the next one will offer a tiny bit more!
Elizabeth
What a wonderful story — with a happy ending — and a great sequence of photos!
Thank you for this inspiring message. Oh, how I can relate! Fear of failure, fear of losing the ones we love…on and on… and yet I guess this is part of the human condition – to be perfectly imperfect.
So glad Ollie cane home! . Love the photo! And love your artwork! Keep going!!!