April has flown by!
Lily Pad Pond will appear on a banner near the Owen Sound harbour in 2017.
April has been a roller-coaster. My grandson was here for a visit with his mom in early April. Then I finished up marking papers for a course I teach for Queen’s and prescreened150 stories for the Alice Munro Festival of the Short Story Writing Competition. And all the while I awaited feedback on some art submissions I’d made.
Recently I contemplated why it is so important for me to be creative. Frankly, I have no choice. It’s part of my DNA. How do I know this?
My mind doesn’t shut off. If I am on a walk in the woods, I am ‘copy editing’ a story or considering how I might improve a painting or trying out dialogue in my head.
My work challenges the status quo. It is never ‘normal’ or like other people’s work. It is always pushing boundaries.
‘June Day’ also goes by the title ‘Iris Explosion.’ It was recently awarded 3rd prize in the category ‘Works on Paper’ at the Walkerton Juried Art Show.
I’m always observing. I listen in on other people’s conversations when I’m at coffee shops and I stare at people, gathering impressions of their looks and quirks in the hope I might use this information in stories.
I focus deeply. Sometimes I don’t want to stop because I am ‘in flow’ but I know I must in order to make dinner or do chores. But I don’t want to.
And finally, I battle resistance. Sometimes I just don’t feel that what I am doing is good enough. I suppose that is one of the draws to submitting work to the public, whether writing or fine art. I must take the risk of showing others what I have created in order to ‘prove’ over and over that what I’m creating is in fact more than just ‘okay.’
I leave you with this quote:
“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.