beginning…

Michelle made a tribute to A Secret Garden over at her blog here, wishing for spring to come in the middle of winter. It is one of my favorite childhood books. When my children were small we had a narrated version that we listened to together, I don’t remember who was doing the narrating but she had a beautiful accent and the way she said Dickon still resonates in my mind when I read the book. So, I decided to make a secret garden piece of my own, a little journal while waiting for spring and started digging through all my recent acquisitions looking for inspiration (above). And looking at the assembled pages I started thinking about the deliciousness of beginning a new piece of work.

My 3D class is reading art & fear as part of their course, and today we were reading about materials and inspiration. About how, as soon as you make the first mark, all the potential ideas that could be there begin to disappear, and by the time the second choice is made, maybe only a few possible works are left, and how the closer you get to finishing a work, the fewer possibilities are left until there is only the one left on the page. And I was feeling a little sad, looking at my glorious pile of possibilities, lamenting all the works which will fall by the wayside as I start to choose… and of course feeling the challenge and the excitement of beginning.

Today in class we also watched this video, which I have been thinking about quite a lot recently. And we talked about how as artists it is really our job, not to have ideas (which really come to us easily – like breathing), or to begin (which again we are pretty OK at), but to finish, as we are the only ones who can do our own work, and the only ones who know enough about it to know where it will/should go.

SO…  on that note another sneak peek at that crazy work about FEAR that is still in process… spurred by the seed planted by Seth in his call for work before Christmas for his new book. And due at a gallery for a small group show in a week (EEEK!). Off to do some work, to finish that project and let the materials for a secret garden marinate while I am FINISHING something!