Feed the Artist

Today is a beautiful spring day. I am sitting outside in the courtyard writing this. It has been an interesting week art wise. When I started this blog, it was basically a daily record of whatever I was making. A few months ago, I gave up my physical “studio” and stopped taking commissions. So, there has not been any “art for sale” kind of art in my blog since November. Since then, as you can see on the blog, mostly I’ve been making short little sketches, drawings, cards, and such. There are a couple of things that happened recently that have shown me something both about myself as an artist and about the purpose of this blog.
This past week, I’ve had the chance to work on a couple of art projects in my role as a missionary in LAMP. But, I have not posted these – even though they fall under the heading of “art I made today.” I feel like these things A) already have their audience, and B) don’t exactly belong to me. I just haven’t felt right about posting them.
The other thing that happened is that about a week ago I realized that regardless of whatever else is going on, I need to “feed the artist” in order to stay sane. What do I mean by feeding the artist? I mean taking a deep breath, feeling the part of me that likes to make things, and then responding to it. This is scary. Why scary? Because I don’t know what my artist is going to want. This is also fun. Why? Because it’s a surprise. Today, my artist wanted to draw designs. So, I went on google and looked up “early Christian motifs.” And then, realizing that a lot of early Christians spoke and wrote Greek (as well as had Greek in their mosaics and frescoes and things) my artist thought maybe I should learn to draw Greek letters – not to learn Greek, but just for the aesthetic. I ended up drawing the Greek alphabet and then copying a Celtic design from another Google images photo.

Will I ever use this information on a commission or on work for LAMP or any other public sort of art? No, probably not directly. But, it satisfies my artist, and I have to keep my artist happy if I want her to work on the other kind of stuff for me. That is what I mean by feeding the artist.
And, I think that has to do a lot with what this blog is for. Feeding the Artist. Maybe my artist just likes to have an audience. (Even though most of my hits are from Russia. What’s up with that?)