Van Gogh Already Did It........

It's Friday. My bed is still in one piece and for the last time, I wake staring at my bedroom wall mural. Tomorrow it will be painted over in white.......

Leaving this room is scary. The choice I have made to live my life creating what is inside is frightening. I am stepping into a world of magnificent failure and I will now open myself up to the vulnerability that I have yet to experience. My sensible brain, yes I have one, says "find a real job". I am being self indulgent, selfish and possibly a little stupid. It tells me no one will ever like what I do, this decision will nail that last metal pin into my hopelessness and underline my belief that I will never be good enough. Finally, my logical, better side of the brain can say, "I told you so". The part of me that wants to tear me down will win.

Only there is a persistent voice screaming inside me. It's time to fly higher, it's time to give back, it's time to honour the gift of my life. It's time to see what might happen when I stop censoring my thoughts and my visions. By following my feelings I have decided to honour my inner artist. We all have one. I am not special or unusual, I am no more gifted or talented than any one else. It's just time for me to explore what it is to be me in the world I am in.

I'm dancing on the edge. That's what I guess I have being interested in from the beginning. Always fascinated with the power of my emotions and where my whimsical imaginations can take me. People may say my decisions have been bad, yet they were always mine. What mistakes I may have made have brought me to the place I am now and lessons have been learned. After all, what else is there really?

My life as an artist may not work and that's ok. I can't make everyone like what I do, yet I can express my feelings and open myself up to the world from the confines of a single room. They say it takes 10,000 hours to be great at your craft, I think it will take 10,000 hours to be good at being me. If we are all artists, then it's time to find out for sure, who am I and why am I here.

Therefore today I am giving myself permission to fail, permission to follow my feelings, permission to express my soul , permission to be whatever it is I am. I will get off my comfy mattress, pull my bed apart and pack it into a van. I'll miss this room, its being my source of comfort for the longest part of my life. Weirdly, it's being the place where more things have happened to me than any other.

If we only have this one life, take the time to live it. Go create, be generous, we are all artists and we all have something new to offer. Share your life with the world in the only way you can, as yourself. This me can't wait to meet, you.

Second coffee down and it's really time to move.

Goodbye bedroom, goodbye pink wall, I'd paint a painting of my bed, only Van Gogh already did that.

If only I was Brad Pitt - My new life as an artist/portrait painter

Imagine this scenario. Two decades of nights that blur into several days with no sleep, ringing ears and eyes the colour of a Bloody Mary. A hopeful single mother/musician, loads drums up several flights of stairs before embarking on a thankless day job one last time. She splashes her weary face with water, packs her sequinned gold hot pants and takes the final step to quit the mundane. Next on her list, international rock star tour. The dream, the golden pinnacle of years of sweaty pubs, boogie nights, bad money and loud music. Two thousand and twenty, the year that I, a struggling female drummer, would finally 'make it'.

Life offers many surprises.

Hello Covid. Hello quarantine. Hello loneliness, hello nothing to do. No gigs, no money, no sign of life as I had previously known it. Hello to a shattered self esteem and endless free time on my hands.

Like so many other people, I was, in an instant, unemployed and considered a non essential adult. Straight off the plane from a cancelled tour, I was locked in my bedroom for 14 days, equipped with a can of house paint and a few old brushes. I started to decorate the walls with art and the fear and uncertainty was lost as I painted a magical garden on my Gyprock in pink. This was the beginning, the seeds of my future and unknown to me at this point, my life as an artist. In quarantine I thought about nothing except the beauty of a flower, the delicacy of a birds feather, the twist of a vine as it meandered around the walls of my bedroom. I was in my private heaven while the outside world was in chaos.

In what seemed like only hours, the fourteen days of isolation were swiftly over. My friends could now visit me in my garden and I was presented with gifts to keep me entertained. Cobra oil paints, multiple canvas, a portrait commission or two and a great deal of encouragement. I painted every day all day, from sun up to sun down. Six quietly productive months floated by resulting in an exhibition of at least twenty pieces plus the foundations of a new career as a painter/artist. I created underwater scenes, gardens with colourful flowers, ethereal woman entwined with nature and visions from my imagination. I was inspired by the surreal and vivid dreams that scattered my broken sleep. Nightmares of people falling ill and my family members becoming a fatal statistic were mingled with moments of enlightenment. There was confusion, anxiety and worry. Was I even allowed to be happy, creative and inspired at a time of global crisis?

This experience changed me in ways that only a pandemic could. Now I am patient, content, closer to my family and closer to who I really am. I realise I'm only at the beginning of my life as a painter and I have so much to learn, yet for me, that's the point. Just as Brad Pitt mentions in the artnetnews Art World article by Caroline Goldstein, May 3, 2017 "I've got to start from the bottom, I've got to sweep my floor, Ive got to wrap up my shit at night, you know?" So here I am, at the very beginning of my new life as an artist. Sometimes I think, if only I was Brad Pitt, someone would notice my work, something great would happen and I would make an unbelievable million dollar sale, yet that's just it. I'm not Brad Pitt. I am me. I am an artist. Art has allowed me to be. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/brad-pitt-on-his-new-life-as-an-artist-946820 Kitty O Art

an hour ago#emerging artist #portrait painter #fine art #exhibition #gallery #art for sale #cobra paints #brad pitt art #new art life #commission art

#bloggingtips #WixBlog