Category: Studio Friday

Ruta Maya organic coffee. If I’m not drinking water, I’m having a latte. Stainless moka pot. Whole milk. Not that I’m always able to sip and paint; I paint or draw in 15 minute spurts throughout the day, whether I have a cup in hand or not. It’s just nice when the two activities collide.

More studios, more potions.

This week’s Studio Friday topic is a challenge (and I’m on vacation this weekend, so I’m not up for any added challenge besides the enormous challenge of travelling with kids). How do I illustrate my approach to fear, within the context of my studio, my work?

I posted one of these photos this Halloween, after Ford won first place in the neighborhood fair for the costume he is wearing, the one I made with him. After searching my workspace and my desktop for a clue to this week’s topic, I kept coming back to this series. This costume was the keystone of several months of Ford’s fear, and by including this triumph of his (over his fears of this imaginary creature) I am displaying my own attitude towards creative challenges: I like to face them head on, without fear of rejection.

I think design school (and I was talking to a friend about this today)(Hi MaryEllen!), despite the fact that I am still paying for it (and will be for a while) taught me to accept criticism. It taught me that jumping in headfirst, and giving all of myself to a project, would yield back every ounce I put forth. What I create may be a flop, but as long as I persist, it’s the process that matters (to me. Screw everyone else!). No effort is wasted.

That said, I am also a perfectionist, so for years now I have resented myself for certain flop projects in school (that really weren’t flops, but mediochre work). The other day, Damon walked into the kitchen, where I was having coffee, and plopped five of my school sketchbooks onto the dining room table. He was cleaning the garage. I sighed when I recognized them: each handmade, handsewn and bound, oversized and beginning to mold. It was funny that, while I knew most of the books contained great (naive, hopeful, expressive) stuff, I was drawn to one section of 1992 where I sabotoged myself brilliantly in a particular class on designing for the future. I remember slipping into a horrible funk after the required reading, Future Shock. I’d never been introduced to speculation. I didn’t grow up with science fiction; in fact, my family avoided it (I never even saw Star Wars until college). You can imagine the shock that I, this mega-naive college coed, felt after reading the book. In me, it planted little seeds of nihilism. I floundered in the class, got my first “C”, dropped off the dean’s list and got really bummed.

But I showed up at the page. I did the work. Sure, I was afraid of failing. I was also afraid of failing when I was in dental school, but I busted my ass and survived. Well, until I realized I didn’t want to become a dentist. When you try, when you do the work in earnest, and miss a little sleep or lose a few hairs, you grow stronger and get to know who you are. Some efforts are successes and some are failures, many may be in between. Over time, the successes eclipse everything else and begin to define you. The portfolio speaks for itself. I ramble when it’s late and I’m on a mini vacation. I’m going to the beauty parlor in the morning and I get to see my grandmother in the afternoon, so I feel giddy and chatty. Maybe a little preachy.

I feel like Chas, in the photos: bring it on, I say. I also identify with Ford, who is wearing the costume I made to resemble the creatures in The Village, whom he had been reckoning with for months, wondering whether they lived in our woods, too. He faced his fears in his own way. In fact, I don’t know who was more proud in this photo: Ford, for winning the costume contest, or me, for having a son so brave to confront his fears in a creative way.

See more Studio Friday.