Days 8 thru 10 catch up

30 days 8 thru 10 catch up, a photo by Annclinations on Flickr.

Never having put myself under much pressure for "getting my art on," I'm finding my commitment to this 30-day challenge, well, challenging.

Usually when I create a piece of art, I have a specific reason for producing it and a particular objective in mind.  Whatever the object, it is most often a gift for someone with its intrinsic motivation.  Frequently enough, I set out doing something I've never done before, which adds a thrilling element to it.  The pressure of time is another habitual aspect of my creative process compounding the buzz.

This 30 Days to Get Your Art On challenge is much more mundane.  Don't get me wrong.  I am enjoying it.  However, the rush I've inadvertently conditioned myself to isn't there.  Though I love giving voice to my creative muse, the discipline of 30-Days presents me with quandaries that run the gamut from the practical to the existential.

• What do I do now that that idea didn't work?
• How do I take an excellent photo of that?
• How do I solve that problem?
• Is this really what I intended?
• How can I do this when I don't feel well?
• How can I make my art / blog interesting to others?
• How do I balance free-flowing ideas with practical work?
• How can I become more efficient in my work?
• How could I begin to make this profitable and would I like to?
• How can I find my "voice"?

Jennifer Louden speaks of "shadow comforts" that get in the way of our creativity.  She says, "This is the moment where you can choose to create or to go numb. It is the present moment, pregnant with possibility and often rife with a great variety of fears. It is in this moment that the juice comes in, where the life unfolds, the Divine speaks to you, where you get hooked up to the universal power plant.  Too often, we block this moment."  (Read her article on Transforming Shadow Comforts here.)

It's easy for me to hide, or perhaps block, myself while performing well-intentioned tasks: getting all the right tools, doing color studies, researching this or that technique.  As a musician, I now realize that, while carrying out those steps is important, it can too easily become like making music by only performing Hanon exercises on the piano or singing only vocalises.

I love to read other people's writings about their work.  So many of them have a true gift for both their art and writing interestingly about their art.  I am beginning to feel that, if I'm lucky, I might only be able to become one or the other but not likely both.