A little update, a new painting and how sketchbooks can save our lives.

I painted the above painting in my sketchbook after I watched the clip from the movie The Notebook the other day where Allie says to her fiancé that she doesn't paint anymore. Here it is: 

The Notebook - I Don't Paint Anymore [HD]YouTube · MovieScenesApr 14, 2022

This scene popped into my head for some reason, and it struck me as very profound. I can tell the people who made that movie thought so too because they use it as the moment when she realizes the huge difference it makes in her life when she really and truly feels free compared to when she doesn't.

It stirred something in me. Maybe I can relate to that feeling. That moment when you realize that you haven't made art in years and you've just kind of been getting by in life but it's been a long time since you felt truly creative and expressed it.

I think we can start to break this spell by the simplest of things. Opening a sketchbook and just drawing or painting one line helps. Then another, then another. Keeping a sketchbook has been a lifesaver for me in this way since 2013. That was that moment for me. I was working in mental health and it had been a long time since I had been making art and I had all but given up on it. It is really a heartbreaking feeling, this realization. 

There were several things that happened at that time to get me going again creatively. When I look back, I was actually doing many many things to try and help myself get unblocked. I was in therapy, I was working my way through one of the Artist's Way books, I was talking about it with creative friends and asking their advice, I had a friend pray for me (with me), and I had a very authentic friend stay with me at the time and her blunt authenticity rubbed off on me. My parents came to visit during this time and I was determined not to become depressed in their presence, so I went into an art store and bought a little sketchbook out of desperation and started drawing like my life depended on it. That was how it started. 

It's been over a decade now since then and a lot has happened. In some ways lately I feel like I'm almost back where I started. Life seems to have a weird way of being non-linear. So much has happened in the last several years. I feel as if I've had a loss of innocence. I've had layer after layer of lies removed from my eyes about the world that we live in and how it actually functions. I should say the "culture" we live in because I keep reminding myself: there is still the beauty and truth of being in nature. That hasn't changed. 

For the past year or so, I've had the use of my friend's shed as a studio and I have really loved it. I painted this painting there and I've had it made into prints (below): 

That's the most recent large painting I've made lately. My sketchbook is helping in the in-between times when I can't get into the studio for whatever reason. 

 

I've been pet sitting for most of my income lately so I am often at other people's houses. Sometimes they are far away from my own home and my shed studio.

Right now I am at someone's house out in Marshall, NC tucked away in a quiet secluded place near a creek and surrounded by forest. I sometimes feel bored when I'm pet sitting and I can't really do what I would like to be doing, which is working in my studio. Hence, this blog post.

I've also been reading a TON lately and I always have lots of opinions and lots of things I'd like to say and share with the world. I always feel like I have important insights that everyone must hear! ha! Maybe I should become a writer. Maybe I will some day. In the meantime, I thought I would share some thoughts on a video while I'm pet sitting here at this house and post it. Here it is. I hope you like it!

Love, Suzy.

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