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| Fettered Femininity by Amy E. Fraser |
Happy New Year! Remember how I was going to start The Legend
of Hare Terra website project in the New Year? Well, it still might happen THIS
year, but I realized I bit off way more than I could chew editing my Parsons Art
Retrospective. I had no idea I had so much amazing stuff I wanted to share! The
editing process to get the Parsons paintings and drawings “print ready” was
much more time consuming then I had anticipated (and still not completed I
might add). It may or may not have to do with the fact that I’m a perfectionist
and I may be treating these works as perfectly preserved historical archives. I
also realized that if I am sharing the Parsons works, then my Art Retrospective
would be incomplete without the Dartmouth works, and the Celebrating Femininity
works… and, and, and! Obviously, I mean one does not go into writing and
preparing art work for their autobiography lightly. In all seriousness, I had
no idea my decision to let my audience “get to know me” was going to be such an
enormous undertaking. Or that it was going to make me feel so emotionally drained.
But duh, here’s a known factoid, everything I do becomes an enormous
undertaking. I’m a complex being, what can I say?
You might
be shocked to discover that I am somewhat of a self sabotaging expert. Not
really though, because if you knew me you would know this is quite obvious! I
am one of those people who have a To-Do list that keeps getting longer each
day, because of course one project leads to another! Like most artistic geniuses,
I keep coming up with fabulous new things I want to create! I always have tons of ideas
and projects rolling at once and I admit that it is super easy for me to get
sent off course chasing that next inspirational high. The muse is the master! Creativity
does not work well on the To-Do list, nor does it fit into a schedule.
Inspiration comes when it comes, stopping in the middle to accomplish ones
scheduled menial task could ruin the flow. Or so I convince myself when I neglect
the mountain of laundry, the suggested thrice weekly 1000 word blog post, or launching
the upcoming Legend of Hare Terra website project.
Yes!
The thrill of New Work! This did happen to me over the holidays. But only
because I was totally fed up with the complete and total boredom of editing the
older work pixel by pixel, brainstorming marketing ideas, coming up with the
next blog post that maybe someone 12 months from now was going to read… I got
sour. Combine that with family drama, Holiday Stress and the Mr. was absolutely
begging me to take a break! So much for embracing the suck, screw that! At
least temporarily, I am only human after all. So then there was delightful low
key family time, too much baking, way too much eating, too many warm and fuzzy
nights in front of the TV… and then… just too much down time in general.
I do not well with inactivity, I needed to make something!
For
fun I did a ton of random drawings, mostly birds for some unknown reason, got that
out of my system and then decided to focus on a new floral painting series. I
disappeared off line for weeks, all the buzz and noise of outside voices
completely gone, no comments, likes or favorites, no worries of blog posts, descriptions,
keywords or SEO crap, just me and the work. The time away painting was fabulous,
rejuvenating and reminded me exactly how much I really miss painting and how
much I dislike all the stuff that goes with it. I’m sorry extroverts, I know
you can’t relate and you love “the show!” but not me, not even a little. I’d be
perfectly happy living life as a hermit, no, not in a cave, but you know what I
meant. Anyway, Art doesn’t exist if no one ever sees it, so back to Embracing the
Suck. Breaks are fine if you can afford to take them but if you want to succeed,
even a little, you do have to put the big girl pants back on every now and
again.
And
I can’t just forget about all that work I have already created. Because while I
keep saying (and feeling like) I’m starting over, I’m not exactly starting over
from scratch am I? Not in the sense that it’s day one with creating artwork
anyway. Let’s face it, as of right now I have over 2,600 works currently
available as Print on Demand. That’s a lot, something to be proud of, and it would
definitely not have happened if I started painting my first piece last January.
In fact, it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t spent the majority of 2019 editing
the works for POD! Fortunately many sold paintings are currently
available as prints today because I had the foresight to take really good
photos before I let go of the work. (Hint: Take really good, high quality photos
of absolutely everything you make – you may also want that work for POD someday)
So
why not just be happy with what I have already accomplished? Because there are
decades of fabulous works still to choose from. I have been incredibly prolific.
In fact, I almost feel ridiculous saying this, but I am daunted by the enormity
of my own body of work! While this is actually a great problem to have, the
down side is that there is only me to tackle it all, leaving me with the constantly
fluctuating conclusion of where to best invest my limited time. Slave labor or
chasing the muse? I frequently feel as though I should just leave the older
work behind and move on from this point forward. There are only so many hours
in the day after all. But the problem with that is, it’s really good work; some
that I have previously exhibited and know people enjoy. And, the Parsons pieces
I recently edited and posted, garnered serious interest, much to my delight, many
have gone viral on Pinterest. This leads me to believe that if I were to market
these images properly, they would have great selling potential. So I can’t let
them go, it would be a shame to miss the opportunity to get these works out
there to a broader audience just because I’m over menial tasks such as
editing... and, Hello, where would we be without the Art
Retrospective for the autobiography? Kidding...
As you can see, I did not have a big New Year, New Me Plan
to announce, I’m mostly here to remind myself to continue on the path I started
last January (2019). As meandering as my current path is, it does lead forward
in one way or another. Even if it does feel like I am getting my feet tangled
up in my own hair like the women from Fettered Femininity! The forward motion may be
incremental; I will most likely divert off into the woods here and there
along the way, but it’s how I need to do things. I’m learning to accept and
embrace my flaws and do my best to work them to my advantage. You know Artists;
it’s all about the journey! Or that’s what we tell ourselves when we have no
idea why we do what we do.
By the way, of course there were other New Year’s
resolutions, I switched from failing to learn Chinese on Duolingo to succeeding
in French and I’ve gotten back into my workout routine… I gained 3 pounds because of it
but we won’t mention that. So I mean, it’s not ALL art, all of the time. I do
have a few other interests, gosh.
Up next, I’ll share my new floral series entitled “Floravased”.
In the meantime here’s wishing you a very Happy New Year!
For more Art and Information on Amy E. Fraser go to Aefraser.com
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