Doing What I Like Because I Like Doing It

This past year, 2019, didn’t necessarily go in the direction I expected. I can’t say I am disappointed. I never set any New Year’s resolutions, so there’s no reason to feel guilty about what I didn’t do. Of course, being a writer and an artist, there’s always the hope for publication and sales, however, I pretty much let the year roll along doing whatever came along to catch my fancy (lots of gardening this past summer.)

One set of thinking carried throughout the year regarding my paintings, though. If I’m working on living wholeheartedly and striving to remain true to myself, what does this mean in selling my work? Marketing and self-promoting are fingernails on a blackboard to me. My entire soul cringes and I want to crawl in a hole.

Thankfully, I had quite a few opportunities to exhibit in 2019, for which I am very grateful. It brings me much joy to receive positive feedback on my hard work and whenever one of my creative babies goes to a new home, I am so happy.

What gets my mind in a tizzy is I love my work and I’m happy to share it, but what do I do as the artwork piles up? I love doing the creative work; painting and writing about painting!

When I first moved here four years ago, I threw away a lot of my framed charcoal drawings because I just don’t have the room to store them. Yes, there were tears, but I can’t save anything. The worse part was the expense of the professional framing. But, how can I not frame when the double matting and framing make the pieces look amazing?

Now my house is filling up with many pastel paintings, some matted and framed, and others just piled in a box. I’m running out of wall space to hang the pictures. I’m told if I don’t market correctly, I’ll never sell, but the thought of doing that kind of work makes me want to throw a little girl temper tantrum, “I don’ wanna!” Stomp, stomp, stomp!

Part of me doesn’t care if I sell. Oh, I want it to sell. Supplies are costly. I’ve even tried looking at the marketing as part of the creativity, but it just makes me want to cry. That’s not the type of creativity I want to do, and it takes time away from what I really want to be doing. I’m just not willing to do go through all the legwork to make it happen. It’s quite a dilemma.

For now, to live a creative, wholehearted life and be true to myself, I’ll continue to do my art as long as I can afford it, and I’ll do shows when opportunities present themselves.