Expectations

When I started this blog, I had this expectation that I would start posting my art work and comments and someone would see my stuff and things would start to happen.  Well, I have had a lot of someones check out my site and I have gotten some nice compliments and feed back.  Posting comments have had the effect of a journal, which a good journal will always get the writer to do some soul searching.  Five months in and it is February, the dreariest month of the year, and I am realizing I have so much yet to learn!

My art is nice, but it could be so much better.  My writing is okay, but this too needs be crafted more.  I am finding it difficult to keep up with my blog, my portfolio and my story ideas in a busy home with a family and part time jobs.  Goals I set for myself have gone from being steep inclines to mountains to climb.  I am also battling my own fears which in the light of logic look ridiculous, but they are still there when logic takes a nap.

So, I am still struggling with what I started to wrestle with in December.  My productivity has sagged and my frustration has become as prickly as an agitated porcupine.  In my clearer moments I KNOW this is just life.  Life is tricky, trying, tiring, testing and sometimes just trifling.  The lesson to learn here is the same as it was before... perseverance.  It has been the lesson for I don't know how long.  I have to keep learning it and persevering through the tests at the end of each lesson.

As I look out at this gloomy mid-winter day, I am trying to readjust my expectations and goals.  In the months ahead, I don't know what will happen in regards to my art, but my goal is to keep making it and to keep seeking to make it better.  I don't know how well I will balance my responsibilities  but my goal is to keep trying to figure it out, even if I totally blow it from time to time.  I just pray for the grace to get through the blunders.  I don't know if I will ever lose all of my sharp edges, but I am going to continue to grind on them.  One day, they may disappear.  My expectations will continue to get too big at times, but Lord willing, I will have future moments of clarity and readjust them to reality.

Thanks for stopping by to read my thoughts.  My purpose is to document my journey as a revived artist, trying to make my art while still doing motherhood and being a wife along with all the work that life gives us to do.  Your comments always mean so much to me so please let me know what you think.  Blessings to you dear Reader!

An Aha Moment

Through the difficulties of last week, with illness and needy children, as well as keeping up with day job work and my house, I felt (and still feel) frustrated that I couldn't spend more time drawing and blogging.  When I did sit at the computer it twas to browse because I couldn't bring myself to be constructive   I didn't put in an entry last week for Illustration Friday because I felt so drained.  I sketched something, but failed to move forward with it.

But even as I had all these feelings of failure, I see an over arching theme at play here that I know is not a coincidence   I think this last week was a lesson in pushing through and not giving into laziness or procrastination.   In the future,  Lord willing,  I will have assignments and I will have to push through what ever blocks I come up against.  I will have to grit my teeth and keep going.

I keep going back to what James says in the first chapter of his book in the Bible; "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endureance."  I may not have brought any great witness this week for the cause of Christ or done anything noteworthy that involved me talking about Jesus, but I think I might have moved a step closer to maturity,

By realizing I have not given up, even for fatigue and distraction, I have learned something really special about endurance and persevering which are God's specialties.

God has persisted in maintaining life on earth despite our unbelief and out right hostility as we have blamed him for our terrible behavior.  Yes, wars are waged, hurricanes happen, and babies die and I don't make light of the grief of losing a baby or anything else for that matter, but babies continue to be born and life for humanity as a whole continues, in spite of our best efforts to destroy ourselves.  In it all, God endures with the love he has for all man kind.

And he promises to keep it going.  He also promises to be the companion, guide, teacher, and savior of those who will trust him.  Most of the time, I'm a pretty shabby follower of Christ, yet that promise is for me too.  And the fact that I can see past my grumpy feelings of wanting to walk away from any future creative endeavors and blame every one in my house for my failures, to the beautiful lesson of pushing through and enduring is not from my own ability to understand.  Most times, I can't get past myself to get the big picture.  I'd rather be mad or feel sorry for myself.

Instead, God seems to have heard me this morning when I asked for wisdom.  I give God all the credit if I have figured anything out at

Inspiration Killers

Inspiration is a slippery thing, like try to catch a fish with your bear hands.  One moment you think you've got hold of it, the next it vanishes.  This week has been hard on my inspiration.  Rather than talk about what did inspire me, I'm going to talk about some inspiration killers.

Bronchitis and a sinus infection ganged up on me last week and inspiration, fair weather friend that she is, curled up and hid.  When you're sick, the ideas that were so abundant and felt so urgent when you were healthy, are now worries that induce procrastination and anxiety, which just makes you more tired than you already are.  Creativity becomes work rather than joyful play.

Once the procrastination had set in for me, I started to get behind.  My daily goals became burdens because as I missed each one, my stress increased which invariably made me want to procrastinate even more, which then had a domino effect because I just continued to miss my self imposed deadlines.  Excuses followed:  "It's not like this blog is my job and my electricity is dependent upon it." and  "It wasn't my fault!  After all I'm sick!" The stress of worry became like fog in my head and inspiration was lost in the mist.

Being sick with a chest congesting illness along with drainage from sinuses can make for difficult sleep.  Not only that, the worries I was entertaining jumped around in my head like little devils and sleep was restless at best.  The lack of sleep made me cranky with my kids and the thought of even turning on the computer made me even more cranky!  I needed sleep, but sleep was slow to come.  And with each passing night, I just felt more and more like I was just functioning.  Inspiration and creativity don't visit in those type of circumstances.

I did manage to turn the computer on and check email.  And in the spaces when I was vegging out, I looked through the web for other artists and illustrators to look at their work.  Usually I find this to be a motivating activity.  Beauty often can help us to be more creative, but this time, with all the stress and worry I was already feeling, the beautiful work of others only made me feel more critical of my own.  I began to wonder if all of this effort to pursue the dream of becoming an illustrator is really just a pipe dream, a waste of time.  My own art work began to look unworthy and not very good at all.

So how do you and I overcome all of these negative, inspiration killing circumstances and feelings?

Perseverance.  I wrote recently about the book of James in the Bible and his reminder to Christians to see trials though the eyes of faith, knowing that when that faith is tested and we weather through the test, trusting humbly that God will be with us through it, we come out on the other side, stronger and more mature and wiser.  Those traits being worth the struggle.

Someone close to me said the only difference between a pipe dream and persevering, is the outcome.  The journey there is the same.  And the only way to know the end is to keep going.  So, how much do I want to see the ending?  I better get back to work and keep going, sometimes gritting my teeth through those uninspired moments.