My friend Dee recently asked me to draw her a faerie picture of her own. I said I’d be happy to; it seemed like a good little project to ease me back into the artwork thing.
Two weeks later I have gotten absolutely nowhere on this picture. Not even a single basic sketch that has any aesthetic merit. I pick up a pencil and stare at my blank sheet of paper and nothing. happens.
It’s like the whole art center of my brain has simply packed up and gone out of business. No no, my brain tells me. We are A Writer now. We are No Longer An Artist. My hand agrees, scrawling listless and unappealing lines when forced to operate a pencil instead of a keyboard.
This is kind of a big deal for me…and also not. Since I was a tiny wee thing I have thought of myself as An Artist, and I think I used to be a pretty decent one. Before I had kids I always just assumed that my fortune lay somewhere down that road. It was who I was.
But now it just doesn’t seem…I don’t know…like something I would enjoy doing. I feel no creative impulse in that direction whatsoever. Nearly everything I love and find beautiful can be captured in a photograph, and for the rare exceptions I’d rather just go with the thousand words.
I’m still trying to do that faerie pic for Dee. I figure if I can accomplish one finished piece of art, it will either wake up that slumbering part of my brain or confirm that it’s shut down for good. I’m okay either way, I just want to know.
Going to go stare at a blank piece of paper some more. It MOCKS me, but I will prevail. Probably.
