What are you working on?

What are you working on? This is a question that's often hard to answer, but it's very important to have an answer. As an artist, if you don't know what you're working on, don't have a project, then you are simply flotsam in a sea of possibilities, going nowhere.

And that's how I've felt lately. I don't know what I'm working on because, at present, I really have no place to work and my supplies are all packed.

I have definite projects I want to be working on, and I'm taking baby steps toward them, but that's not rewarding at the moment.

It all came to a head the other day when I was unpacking boxes without really knowing where things should go. A kindly suggestion from Chris that I should just throw out all my slides was the tipping point. WHAT? Is he inSANE?

No. He's very sane. But he's not an artist. So I called my friend Kathleen Amt. She's an artist. She would understand. And she did. And as we talked I began feeling more energized, revitalized, and at the end of our conversation I had more of a feeling of direction, of knowing some specific steps I could take to get me back on track, steps that didn't require torn papers, glue, paint, and a brayer.

So what am I working on? I have two photo projects, one to be done in the next couple of months, and the other is more of an ongoing project. I have an idea for an assemblage piece and I'm slowly gathering the necessary materials for that.

And then there are some Photoshop things I want to learn, so I shall research one of them. I'll also revisit an online class I never finished, which will sharpen my skills and perhaps take my work in another direction.

And finally there is one thing I can pursue right now, until I find some of my papers and paints, that will at least give me something to do with my hands, so when the studio finally comes to fruition, I can jump right in.

So thank you, Kathleen, for being as weird as I am, for not making fun of my angst, and by, just in the course of a simple conversation, inspiring me to take some control and to see more clearly where I want to go. To know exactly what it is I'm working on.

And the photo at the top of this post? I have a metal sculpture of a red heart that has a crack running down its length. I turned the sculpture over and saw how cool the back looked, so I placed it on top of a glass patio table and used the iPhone to take an abstract shot of "a river running through it." My plan is to photograph it more professionally and then I'm sure it's going to appear a lot in various photomontages.

So my question to you this morning is: what are YOU working on?

©Carol Leigh
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