Trial and Error

Yesterday I managed to dodge afternoon housework, pretending I didn't see the woolly mammoths begging to be vacuumed, and got into the garage for a little studio time.  It's still hard for me to call it a studio as it still feels so foreign.  My efforts at organizing when the studio was in the house have all been undone with supplies now wherever they'll fit as opposed to their proper place.  I've tried replicating the storage as it was indoors, but have had limited success.  Every day feels like a scavenger hunt, but I resist spending time trying to bring more order to a chaotic and temporary work space, knowing I'd end up doing more organizing than creating.

The figurative piece I'm currently working on is making me a little nuts.  I am taking one step forward, then two steps back every time I sit down to work on it.  My friend Debbie's cyber voice is whispering in my mind, reminding me to just let go and see what happens.  When I start working on a piece, I don't have any preconceived notion of the final outcome - no sketches, no mental picture of the finished piece - and so I wing it as I go.  This piece sat for a long time, and one afternoon I just picked it up and started adding to it.  Now, it looks like it.  I add wire, remove baubles, add paint, rub off paint...I can't put my finger on it, but it just doesn't feel right.  When I look through art magazines or books, I find myself mentally criticizing assemblage work in particular that appears to have just been created by throwing stuff together until the artist figured it was time to stop.  That's what I'm afraid this is beginning to look like.  Sigh.

This is when the business of being self-taught bites me in the caboose as I realize how much I haven't learned.  I work on this piece and worry about how it will be finished, how it should be displayed when complete.  What kind of stand should I build?  How can I hide the inside/under the skirt?  Is it supposed to be a skirt?  I hadn't intended it to look like a skirt or dress.  The face appears masculine, but the garb suggests feminine.  Arghhhhhh!

On the mom front, I am finding my two worlds colliding these days.  I brought the art journal I'm working on into the house to show the family what I'm working on when I'm squirreled away for hours.  Where is it now?  Who knows.  Someone has moved it and no one takes credit nor remembers having seen it recently.  Really?  I need GPS tracking on everything that is mine.  More sighs. 

So today I'll take another whack at the figurative piece and try to shut down my over-thinking brain.  Maybe something miraculous will happen and it will look less like a craft project and more like art.