Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Peace and quiet and fear

The boys left Sunday. Off to Itasca (4 hours NW) for their annual foray into the woods, where Dana teaches biology to incoming freshmen and Alexander has the time of his life playing with the peer mentors and the kids of other instructors. 
I always look forward to my two weeks of alone time but this year it is different because I really am alone: there's no Cupid by my side. I'm pretty sure that Cupid relished her alone time with me just as much.
It's always a time of mid-year resolutions for me. I started my two weeks well, with a trip to the gym and resisting the urge to run to the store to buy more yummy flavored creamer for my coffee. I need to get back to using 1% milk.
I am resolving (again) to rid myself of the fear that infects my life.
A big one is my fear of making art. My poor muse, always being ignored. This fear stems from my issues with perfectionism, which I've dealt with since I was 6 or younger--not wanting to make 'mistakes', the fear of failure, and not being accepting of myself.
For someone with a background in research, where did all the thrill of experimentation go?

But as soon as I finish this blog post, I am setting myself up on the living room floor with a much-too-large assortment of red- and white-tones of acrylic paints and working on a memorial collage about a friend's therapy dog.  My reward will be to dive into a book by Beryl Taylor which I have wanted for a long time and recently received. Her work is so incredibly detailed; she uses fabric and paper and beads and embroidery to create amazing quilted fiber art. Every time you look at one of her creations, you notice something new. Her work is so inspiring, but for now I'd better start smaller although I did make a piece of her fabric paper the other day.

2 comments:

Jill said...

Hey Deb! Saw the post about Cupid yesterday--it was beautiful but didn't know just what to say. Hope you enjoy your "me" time! My art (now crafts) *always* suffer from the "it's not going to be perfect so why do it" mentality. I'm trying to make a wood chalkboard - piece of wood + chalkboard spray paint - how freakin' hard is that? The chalkboard paint doesn't look perfect enough - the wood is too rough and makes a mess w/the chalk....now it just sits. I hope you post your art - looking at art does *nudge* me towards the craft (crap) room but this damn 50 hour a week job is killing me.

J

Debra McWilliam said...

Hi Jill. I read you need to put about 15 coats of the paint on the wood. Sound like a lot of work! In addition to the 50 hours? I'm tired just thinking about it. Keep at it though, if you enjoy any part of it--just don't let the perfectionism demons butt in. Easy for me to say!