ArtBistro

 "When they said to pick one thing and stick to it..." I wish I had listened. Poetry, theology, science, and especially music were the sirens of my life. I was sidetracked for years by those other interests. Some summers ago I let gardening define my happiness and didn't paint for months. I should have let my vegetable garden die and painted. I should not have spent so many damned stoned jazz jam sessions with my band before I sold my sax. I should have been PAINTING.

That's why John Singer Sergeant  had painted thousands of paintings by the time he was my age and I have only hundreds. He picked painting early in life- AS I DID TOO- but he stuck to it, and I, considering myself to the epitome of Renaissance man, dabbling in the other arts and sciences as the fancy struck me...I BECAME DEBAUCHED.

Since I turned forty I have tried to make up for lost time and train myself to GET IN THE STUDIO AND PAINT daily. However, what am I doing right now? I'm not painting. I'm typing on my computer for this blog. 

Woe is me.

and you actually believe vegetables have no worth? you learned from them. growth, development, structure. all these will feed into your painting now. sargent wasn't competing with you. why should you bemoan what isn't? so you passed on some paintings. how about shooting for quality instead of quantity, take what you've learned from gardens & music & put it on canvas. you'll feel better about that rather than beating yourself up.

I feel this way all the time.  That I am just wasting and will continue wasting years of my life on distractions.  I have felt like I have wasted half of my young life on music when I could have been furthering myself in art.  I even attempted to go to college for it until I saw it was a dead end street.  Music sometimes influences my art but mainly by listening to it.  Why waste time and suffering on something when we could have chosen one thing.  Unfortunately, working dead end jobs seems to be at the forefront at the moment.  Its amazing how many ideas and works I have backlogged for the sake of living or distractions.  (and I do have a lot that I should be working on as well as practicing.) 

Oh! And who the heck are "they" anyway?

 Thank you Phoenix for understanding this feeling. I'm sure others of you can remember some point in your life while working at some low-paying stupid job where suddenly some marvelous creative idea pops into your head while working but you're too busy to sketch it or write it down. By the time you get home you can't remember it. It's only those of us that feel we have something important to say that are keenly disturbed by this loss of mind and waste of time. I agree with the United Negro College Fund, but you don't have to be black to get it: A mind is a terrible thing to waste- especially when it's your own. Multiply that one lost idea by all the days you have been alive but stuck at school or work or caught in a traffic jam and then see what I mean.

Tamzara, I don't think I'm being especially hard on myself- not half as hard as van Gogh was on himself. He died considering himself a total failure. I'm proud to have suffered for my art and it has made me a better painter. I would do it again. I would do almost anything to continue being an artist. And Gecko, I'm alone. I have no wife nor kids nor mother nor servants. If I don't vacuum and clean up occasionally, this place would be unlivable fast. We must do what we must do. That's all. But don't you sometimes envy those famous artists with means from birth like Sergeant? He was sketching and traveling across Europe as a child, and was commissioned as a young graduate to do portraits of princes and presidents. He had servants to cook and clean and launder his clothes while he painted. I wonder if I shall ever get that lucky.

Luckily Gecko, gardening seems to follow me. My trumpet vine is blooming and the hummingbirds have a reason to visit me. But I didn't even fertilize it- it just decided to bloom anyway. I love to garden and see things grow, but I'm never going to have more time to paint if I daydream too long among the flowers. 

And sheasings, tell me who the heck they are. I'm usually pretty savvy but I don't know who you are referring to.

I am both an artist/writer.  I feel that I am pretty good at both but in order to do what is needed in either requires me to give up one for the other for some time.  I have book ideas as well as poetry that I have worked on in the past.  I am not near completing most of them.  Part of it is due to the fact that I must push one to the side for a lengthy period of time in order to do the other one.  I am king of like you Kevin.  I tend to be a little OCD at times and If I am going to be head on in a project I want/have to go in it fully.  I have been putting off my writing due to so many problems with jumping between dead end jobs lately.  Part of the reason I am torn about doing the writing is that I am still fighting with myself about giving up everything at that given monment to focus on it.  When I write I want to be able to sit down and finish what I want to accomplish at that given time, or just write or paint until my arms fall off.  (Whatever I am feeling at the time)  I like to work start to finish (within reason or course.)

Boy, money WOULD solve a lot of problems right now.  They say "money can't buy you happiness."  I tend to disagree.  Money would definitely buy me happiness.  If I had all the money in the world, I would be a happy man.  I could travel the world, see all the places that I dream of, be able to do art and write without the worries of finding the time to do them in between meaningless hours at the dead end jobs.  I could create all the ideas that are floating around in my head without the excuse that I don't have enough money to do them or buy the supplies needed. 

Unfortunately, I am stuck working the same dead end jobs in a nowhere town without a ticket that leads to nowhere.

Wow, Bob. I must honestly admit that those few minutes reading A Ghostly Prose were truly the most valued minutes i've yet spent reading the poetic nuances and prose of the ArtBistro contributors. I consider you a talent, a colleague, and would like to invite you, with honor, to examine a collection of my writings in the poetry group. They're scattered about through those files, but if you know how to find them I encourage you to believe that they're worth it. I thank you for contributing this piece and thank you for being a part of my group. I would be pleased to read and comment on anything that you may contribute in the future.

Respectfully,

 

Ryan Fiskewold (FISKWORLD)

;If you were at work and had a great idea, then forgot it....it probally wasnt ment to be. The only paintings that I produce are the ones that demand it. It's the image that wont leave your mind, that you work on and over in your head a 1000 times before you lay a brush to the canvas.

this thread made me cry like a baby..

i feel lost..

i didnt get to the last post before i couldnt see through the tears..

but regarding the comment about an idea not being remembered not being worth it or whatever ( i know i didnt quote it well)

i just want to say that if i had not taken the time on occassion to write when i had a desk job a few years ago... then i wouldnt be able to post the poem in my 'about me' section.. which turned out to be very draining emotionally yet.. i look at it now years later and it is still me..

i know i didnt cure anything worldwide or even on a small scale..

but  my art is my healing..

and i struggle for the meaning beyond what it gives me personally.. i have done the jobs that dont fulfill.. and now i am unemployed and find it very difficult to even think about doing it again.. some days i am constantly finding that glimmer of hope that in todays world with more ways of exposure and media.. there is a place for me..

but realistically speaking..

i have not gone to college.. i hate money and the thought of having to take certain courses in order to take the courses you want to take.. not to mention you have to make sure you graduate or whats the point.. or so it seems..

i have had a touch of writers block for a few years.. it hasnt been the same since.. i always loved photography (along with other art forms since i was a child) but only in the last couple of months .. had someone believe in me enough to tell me that i am good at it..

only in the last few months have i had someone tell me.. i can do this..

what about that seems so wrong?

before i just go on and on and on.. ill stop there.. that could end up becoming another topic for another time..

besides... im not sure i have a point.. but i needed to get at least something out...

I'm a lucky guy? Yeah- sometimes. Life is many ups and downs. Sometimes you're lucky; sometimes you're not.

In elementary school in 6th grade, I was the school's "artist": I did illustrations for the school newspaper, people raved and I got respect. My teacher, Mrs Leffler, said: You have a God-given talent! You can't waste this when you grow up!" I thought: no problem."

In 8th grade, in what we used to call Junior High, I was the geek that every one picked on, got laughed at and beat up. No respect at all.

In 11th and 12th grades in High School I was on top of the world! I walked the halls in wild clothes and hair, I was a Captain Beefheart poet, a  rock star, an abstract artist, and my band was not just an ordinary rock band, it was the most avant-garde creation ever! I was so far out the teachers said I was either completely crazy or a brilliant genius. I thought I had it made. I was in love too with this soul-mate of a girl- she turned out to be the Great Love of my life. The others that came after were nothing compared to her.

Then she left me, I dropped out of college, the band broke up, I started using drugs, my father died and I had to get a steady paying job. Years passed while art became an occasional hobby. The creative me was withering and dying.

Just before my 40th birthday I started thinking: what about my art? Wasn't I meant for something better than wasting my life working at loser jobs? One day- it was like a light switched on: I vowed to do everything in my power to be the artist I was meant to be AND TO NEVER STOP TRYING AGAIN.

I bought a camera, started drawing at a furious pace, took out a vendor's license to sell at art shows, gave up tobacco and drugs, entered juried shows, and was soon selling some work.

I returned to school in 1995, got my associates degree by 1997, transfered to a four year college and struggled to get my BFA while managing a shoe store full time. I also started studying traditional painting at a local atelier and REALLY learned how to paint. My professors told me to continue on at school to get an MFA so I could teach, but I thought I had finally made it. It took me 8 years and a lot of work and money- but it was worth it: I made it. For the first time in nearly thirty years, I was back in the game: I'm an artist.

From 2002 when I got my BFA, to 2004 my new traditional realist paintings were showing at galleries and the local museum, I was doing okay, but not well enough to stop me from working at stores part time. After coming so far, working at stores enraged me, because I had to switch hats and turn "artist" off while on the clock. In 2005 mom began to die of lung cancer. Although i quit smoking, she never did.

She died in the spring of 2006 and i returned to graduate school in the fall. Since her death I have felt deeply and unshakably  alone and depressed, and had to force myself to paint. It's hard when I feel that nobody gives a damn if I paint or not. I have only worked sporadically in stores since my mother's death, because now I'm diabetic and heavy and can't stand for hours on end. Also, such work is so personally demeaning as to make me angry enough to go postal. I sold mom's house at sacrifice last year and have run out of money again, living on scarce painting sales and the last fumes of my credit. Add the college loans and i have crushing debt. Down I go again! It seems that more ups and downs await me on this roller coaster called "life."

Now I did not tell all the above history to complain about my life- I'm glad I'm an artist. It seems that I can't be happy doing anything else. But I have also suffered for it. I'm ashamed of some things, but I'm proud of the paintings and other creative things I did. The struggle has only made the achievement  more worthwhile.

My purpose in starting this thread has been to lament the many hours that I spent NOT PAINTING. I think if I had my head screwed on right from the beginning, I could have painted more, and maybe even better paintings. Of course, history has spoken and the past can't be changed. I must look forward, not back, but occasionally I become filled with regret and wonder how I managed to waste the best years of my life.