A new year is almost here. I am usually never a resolution type but this year I do know of one. As you may or may not know, I am an artist fighting for room in my life to really pursue my art. I don’t want my art to be a hobby, something that I do rarely. I want to run after it. But what I am learning is as my life continues to become busier and busier, the time and space for my art needs to be more and more fought for. I love making art, it is a big part of who I am; however, it is still work. And when I have a running to-do list in the back of my mind, it seems easy to put my art on the back burner.
So my resolution this year is to make more art than I did this last six months. I am still learning how to really do it, and still dreaming about what it can all become. I have dreams of starting a card company, alongside my fine art. I need to always be learning, always pushing myself, and I hope to use this blog as a tool to push me farther. I want to blog something I have been working on once a week. Having this goal will make it easier for me to do so, since I am a sort of deadline dependent person after all.
What have you created lately? Do you ever experience difficulty managing your to-do list and still finding time to create something completely unique to you? What do you do to keep yourself motivated?
Whatever you do, may you find the time to create this year. Because it matters, so deeply.
I know that life is busy and hard, and that there’s crushing pressure to just settle down and get a real job and khaki pants and a haircut. But don’t. Please don’t. Please keep believing that life can be better, brighter, broader, because of the art that you make. Please keep demonstrating the courage that it takes to swim upstream in a world that prefers putting away for retirement to putting pen to paper, that chooses practicality over poetry, that values you more for going to the gym than going to the deepest places in your soul. Please keep making art for people like me, people who need the magic and imagination and honesty of great art to make the day-to-day world a little more bearable. ~Shauna Neiquist in Cold Tangerines
