About Me

My photo
Documenting a period in my development that could become pivotal

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Reflecting on my art journey's direction

A website about Discovering Your Ju Ju is for me a reminder I must think about finding where I am going with my painting journey. The rain is falling hard on my umbrella and navigating around my studio and home is slowing me down.
I was looking for a couple of flutes I traded for a painting in October. I thought I put them in a closet and I went there first but did not see them tucked behind everything else. I frantically started looking in every nook including my studio where behind stacks of frames and finished painting piled in front of bins on wheels full of more painting behind which is a closet with more shelves stacked with paintings. When there is hardly room to walk safely into my studio, it is time to make some changes. Finally my husband found the flutes on the shelf where I thought they should be but I just couldn't see them because of all the knitting projects and table clothes crammed tight in front of the flutes.
The article speaks of pieces only you could do. I will keep what is truly me and recycle what is not. I have already started to donate seven 8" square Masonite blocks to the acrylic painting class at the Grace Center. Secondly, I am exhibiting about 50 to 60 paintings at the Albany Public Library over the next three months. And I have about 15 at a local business on rotating loan for a decade now. With these paintings out in the community, I will have time and space to retire ones that someone else could have painted. Retiring means recycling them.

4 comments:

Kay Dennison said...

Sounds good!!! I hope I can get the search for my inner artist started soon.

Diane Widler Wenzel said...

Kay, For me it is always a new beginning with a hard time getting started on something new.

Rain Trueax said...

I have a pile of CDs in the middle of my living room as part of my desire to clear out what isn't needed or wanted... but it's not easy.

Diane Widler Wenzel said...

Rain,
Keeping what matters is difficult to me too. I just keep at it. This year I have not been able to recycle my paintings. They seemed all too important to retire. But now I will put them through another screening process keeping what nobody but I could paint. All the easy decisions are in the past.
The need to be more selective increases because I have started stretching new canvases on recycled supports in a space already over filled. I must decide on a number that I can not exceed in my house or rent a storage locker again.
The bright side of this process is the relatively short period of time it is taking me to select paintings for the "Fish Story" from each period of my painting since 1960.