Creative Growth…

We grow in our creativity – at least I do – in fits and spurts…there are times of rapid growth and times of slow or non-existent growth…it is in the times of rapid growth that I have ideas coming at me faster than I can do anything with them and I need to write them down or risk loosing them…then in the times of slow or no growth, I can go back and explore these ideas that I wasn’t able to look at before (that is, if they still make sense!)…

There are also time when I seem to get sidetracked altogether…like I seem to have been lately…spending more time doing photography…but it all goes towards feeding the creative spirit…I did make it up to the studio yesterday though…I have a few painting ideas that have been percolating and germinating in my head for a while now and I need to get them out now…and it is a good time to get them out and onto canvas, because I can use these ideas (which will hopefully be actual, physical paintings soon) for my next show that is coming up fast! I think I will have enough for the show with these few more…this is something I am still figuring out how to figure out – how many paintings are needed to nicely occupy a specific space…I guess that comes with experience…

I’m not sure what, if any specific thing or combination of things, triggers periods of rapid growth…was it something inspirational that I saw? – I’m sure that has an effect sometimes, but it doesn’t always seem to…is it just some natural ebb and flow of my being?...to be honest, I haven’t ever really tried to track the reasons…while I am lucky in that I almost always have more ideas than time to explore them, I am not so self-assured that I want to look too closely at that creative vapour thread for fear of scaring it away…and I think, by its very nature, it is an ethereal thing, not something that you can produce on demand by means of some creative recipe…

I do know that I am always looking at art…of all kinds…all over the place…in real life and on the Internet…blog wandering is great for this…I can get lost for hours wandering from link to link…eye candy to eye candy…inspiration to inspiration…researching various artists…I also going to galleries, read books and magazines…this renewed interest in photography has me becoming more observant and that helps not only with my photography but also with creative ideas for painting…I think this constant immersion keeps me inspired…

This week I will be bringing in 3 paintings to the Ottawa School of Art Boutique to hopefully have them hung for sale in there…I am still deciding which ones to take in…

This one...


















And maybe this one...this is a detail...














My studio is in its usual state of chaos...I am going now to spend some time painting...sorting...and deciding which paintings to submit...