Melting Pot of Ideas

After the wild ride of eating, sleeping and drinking art for the last 7 days the real challenge starts now.

I have some wonderful projects from this week that resemble the work of Anne Grgich, Traci Bautista, Beryl Taylor and Leighanna Light. Aside from getting the unfinished ones done now the question is, "how do I take what I've learned and make it my own?"

Voice Lessons with Carla Sonheim included a one-on-one critique of work created prior to the class that we'd brought with us. Carla went around and was able to look, evaluate, answer questions, etc. as everyone else worked. It was interesting to hear the comments and conversations. I was sure it was going to look as if my work was busy, chaotic, just coming short of including the kitchen sink. That wasn't the case at all.

Isn't it funny what our perspective is of our own work? I am very comfortable creating in a workshop environment. I enjoy the sharing of ideas and feeding off the energy and enthusiasm. Yet, working on my own, in the studio, I am constantly full of self doubt. I often ask myself, "how is what I do any different than what's already out there?" (For one, I 'm not afraid to use a nipple from a baby bottle in my work, lol).
Those kind of doubts come up with blogging too. How is what I write interesting and engaging enough for people to read and then enough to keep them coming back to read more? But more often than not, I just write. Then I read. I'm so glad more of my friends are creating their own blogs. It's the modern version of, "reach out and touch someone..." With school starting I won't be able to get together with the gal pals much. Blogging helps me feel connected.

Here's another tidbit as a result of AU. I mentioned, in therapy, that "lovely" pit in my stomach when I was drawing with charcoal this week. That dread of drawing classes in college. Even that gorgeous guy walking on campus turning out to be our nude model wasn't enough to make me dread the class any less!

Nan, (my therapist), zeroed in on my comment and told me to focus on that, find my target, bring a piece of charcoal next time and we'll work on it. I asked, how is it that in a span of weeks all these issues are coming to a head? "It's time," she said, I'm ready for a change. Grrrrrrrreat!
Now what did I do with that !#$%&@* piece of charcoal?

So far, so good. I've made some wisecracks about my therapy this summer about how it's working. I've found myself reacting to situations differently, for the better. It's refreshing not letting myself get all tangled up and stressed out. What's the expression? "Getting my knickers in a twist..." I'm not doing that. It's a good thing.

I seem to be getting a little introspective and perhaps a tad sappy. Not my intention to go off in that tangent. I do want to make use of all the knowledge and inspiration from this past week.
In between all of that I have to figure out what to teach kindergarteners next week. They're cute but I'm better with bigger kids. They get my jokes...This will be the first year I teach all the kinder kids as opposed to only one class per year.
Plus, we made some alterations to the schedule where the music teacher and I see 3 grade levels twice a week per quarter. Then she and I switch grade levels the following quarter. I'll see Kinder, 2nd and 5th 1st Quarter, while she gets 1st, 3rd and 4th graders. I may have the grade levels a bit mixed up but it's something like that. We're hoping this will help the students retain information better so we spend more time on content rather than reviewing. It saves on prep time too. I only have to prepare 3 lessons a week instead of six.

I'm not ready to think like a teacher. I still want to think like an artist. I'm pretty lucky that I can sort of do both. I might start my older kids with an Anne Grgich style portrait. OOoooh, fun!The pics were taken at Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort last weekend before Art Unraveled. A whole different world, isn't it?