Fr-fr-freezing

 

I am in a quandary about the direction of my art activities. I have too many things to do. Too many opportunities.

It has been a strange year in that there has been a world-wide pandemic, people have stayed home and the economy shut down. I, at first, enjoyed the isolation and got to work on my art. I continued to have exhibits, even if few viewed them. But lately, the isolation has been felt and I have been looking for opportunities to reach out to others. And now here I am with too much on my plate.

I have two galleries where I hang my work. The one gallery seems to sell just about anything I give them (Gallery 360) and I am busy trying to keep them supplied.

To counter the isolation of the pandemic, I have tried to partner on projects with a few people and now have a film and book project to work on that will take the whole year.

Although I have done little to nothing advertising art lessons, I now have five real people wanting classes and about one new person a week inquiring.

I am presently working on a commission and have two potential commissions in the pipeline.

Then there are new directions I want to go with my art, like start to paint figures, have an online auction of small works and start to figure out a new method for making large-scale block prints.

All this while having a full time job that is starting to interact more with other artists and, as a result, is becoming more fun and engaging.

But this is too much. I don’t have the time or energy to do all of this. Each opportunity has, at its core, something that I am interested in.

I can’t complain because I know there are many who have had opportunities dry up in the last year. But, sometimes in these types of situations I freeze up, I end up procrastinating as a form of rebellion against my need to make decisions. If I pursue any of these avenues, my mind sees them as potentially being profitable for the next five to ten years. That is a commitment. In the negative, its a prison. In the positive, they all are good opportunities that can lead to even better things.

So much to do, yet I haven’t painted anything in a week. I have been making stretchers, which is a pretty good excuse to spend a little time in the studio and then leave because of the smell of the oil ground. The cold weather also makes it easy to snuggle up in my house and not walk out to the studio, which isn’t heated quite well enough to take off the chill when it is below 0⁰.

So, I freeze. I stop moving. In actuality, I stop being in the present with my self. Sometimes people comment on my productivity, but the actual thing is that I spend a lot of time in the present with myself. I just do naturally what seems innate and that results in something. Others see those results and call that productivity. I just see it as being. I do understand the need to rest, relax, and focus on other aspects of life. But at times like this, those things all start seeming like a pile of activities on top of everything else. I start to lose myself in the avalanche of possibilities. My muscles start to tighten. I freeze. I freeze like a Minnesota February night.