more rambling about the creative process....

my creative process has undergone many changes over the years. i've clung to this vision of the "artist" in my mind and long spent my young artistic years very much trying to keep up with the vision i had in my head. i mention about it being so hard for me to keep sketchbooks. instead, i tend to doodle on office paper at work while on the 75 phone calls i answer each day....or i just begin new work without prep work or sketches, with no particular focus at all, or moving forward with that singular idea i was pondering at the time.

my -sketchbooks- then are numerous. both literal books and tidbits of paper. some of the books i draw in, some i write in, some for everyday life where i create pages & pages of lists- bills to pay, things to do, artistic priorities, publix priorities, ways on which to improve myself. I've said before i'm not necessarily moved to create work everyday. having both a demanding retail career as well as an artistic one forces me to make work, sometimes even when i'm not moved to do so, because the alternative is not making the work at all. so i've come to view all of these tidbits of paper, the lists, the doodles, the 1/2 finished paintings and sketchbooks, as my creative process.

my studio, which is now my bedroom and the front porch always has to be clean before i start to make work. if it's not, then i move to a spot that is clean and mess that up to....dragging out 5000 supplies i won't use but need to look at for some reason because it sparked in my head.

often, i'll spend the precious day or two i have off rearranging all of the 5000 supplies, thinking that by doing so i will find the perfect organization of it all that will make my creative time and ability more productive. all of these things annoy me because somewhere deep in the back of my brain, i still have a tiny glimpse of that vision of what an artist should be.

slowly, i'm beginning to understand that in these awkward tween-age years of my artistic growth that i'm still forming the roots of my creative process.