Post Number 100!

Hot diggity dog!  Stirring Up Ghosts is 100 posts old!

When I decided to start publishing a blog again, two years after I abandoned a previous blog, I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it.  It took a while for me to even decide on a name, and that was after consultation with others.  The title was not a favorite of those I polled, but after consideration I felt that with this blog I was indeed going to be stirring up the ghosts of my past, and that it was certainly appropriate.

What this blog has become is a meditation on the effect mental illness has had on my life and my art.  I can't deny that mental illness is a major factor in how I live my life today.  If it hadn't been for a serious breakdown 5 years ago, I would probably still have the job I'd held for 25 years.  But that's OK.  It's been an important journey of self-discovery and disclosure of long-held secrets, even secrets I had hidden for so long I wasn't aware of them.

But I think the blog is also a reflection on the joy of making, of creating art that makes me happy and also pleases other people.  I'm finally realizing that I have to make art that first pleases myself, and then worry about everyone else.  Most artists have a hard time with satisfying themselves, I think.  We're too worried about selling our work.  We want people to like what we do.  Especially those special folks in our lives.

I said recently to a friend that I'm definitely not afraid of rejecting any of my pieces that, upon reflection, I decide just don't work or are not of high enough quality that I want to sell them.  I'm conscious of quality control.  There are 'mistakes' I will tolerate, but there are many that I won't.  I decided a while back that if I can't support a piece I'm not going to show it or sell it.  

Sometimes I will show a piece and realize, once it's on display, that it just doesn't work.  This happened recently with a piece (the one you see here) that had been a long time in creation and once I saw it on the wall, I thought "uh uh - not good." This was in spite of my artist cousin Jan's opinion that it worked quite well.  So I've added it to the reject pile.

One of the more 'famous' instances of my disliking a piece very strongly can be found in the photo of me at the right of this post.  It's one of my earliest pieces, about a woman who is waiting for her lover to return from war and is called, I think, "She Who Waits."  I entered it in an art show for disabled artists in 2012 even though I wasn't a great fan of it, and my Congressman, David Cicilline, chose it among others to hang in his office.  The photo is of me at the reception he held to honor the artists.

She Who Waits

But I really didn't like the collage at that point, and wanted to get rid of it.  I knew my friend Michele Alt loved it and I tried several times to give it to her but she wouldn't take it, wanting me instead to get a good price for it.  We finally agreed at one point that I would have a print made of it and she'd buy that.  I was still determined to give her the piece and in late 2013 I had my chance.  She and her husband Adam helped me do an upscale flea market in December 2013, and I thought that it'd be a good way to repay them for the help they'd given me.  Michele protested but finally took the piece and, I think, gave the print to her mom.  I'm glad the piece is in a good home, although Michele (and my cousin Jan) still can't understand why I dislike it so much.

But that happens.  We're not always in love with our own work.  Which is why I've taken a temporary hiatus from making my usual work to sell in the shop.  It's normally a lot of fun to make but I felt that I was getting stale and not enjoying the creation.  In the process I've discovered that I enjoy painting (though I don't think I'm that great), and I'm figuring out a different way to collage and still tell my silly stories.  Although I'm still on a collage journey, I'm traveling on a different path for a while.  It's a way to rejuvenate the creative juices, I think.  I've shown you guys some of the art journal pages I've done using some of the different things I've tried.  And I plan to continue that trip down a different road.  At least for now.

So that's where I've been for the past 100 posts.  I thank you all for traveling along with me, understanding when I'm mired in darkness (all too often lately), and celebrating when the work is going well.  I hope you'll continue to accompany me on my meanderings and I look forward to Post #200.

later,
lin