Open Studios, Questions and Rising from the Ashes

Open Studios, is a time of shmoozing, talking and connecting with people. Ideally, a time to make new connections and maybe sell works to new collectors. I asked questions and made consorted efforts to connect with others. Reminding myself: we are all the same. We are all human beings.  

I am left only with questions.

Who were the collectors? 

Who were friends of other artists in the building? 

Who were people just doing a free activity? 

What did I learn?

What was the take-away?

What sold? 

What new contacts were made?

Which works spoke to which people?

Who were the shrimpers?

Who were artists walking around to scope out and see other studio spaces? 

Who were the artists coming by to see, steal and question techniques and ideas?

Who were the people I touched, moved or inspired?

How does my art reflect upon life’s big questions? 

I find myself in a constant battle within when it comes to the creative process.

Who am I?

I used to make art for the sake of making art and as an outlet and escape from my life’s frustrations, struggles and failures. 

Recent abstract works are created from a state of gratitude of presence and being. Both processes seem important to my psyche.

Who am I making art for? 

Why do I make art?

What matters to me? 

What do I have to say? 

Am I done? 

Does anyone even care? 

Is anyone even interested? 

To do it or not to do it? That is the question. 

Whether it is nobler to create and show works, and if so only to show the most recent works? 

Is it o.k. to exhibit older works? I have so much inventory that would be wonderful to move out into the world. 

How much to show?

How many styles? 

How much is enough?

William Shakespeare 

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remember'd!”