I’ve been a bit unsettled lately. I look around and wonder where I’m supposed to be – “not here” I think to myself. But I am here, and there is nothing wrong with this particular place. Driggs could use a bit more culture and a few more painters, but the location has nothing to do with my distraction. No matter the point on a map, I feel this restlessness on a regular basis. As I age, the time between moves grows longer, but the eventual move seems inevitable. I spend too much time thinking about what I might be missing when more energy should go into seeing what is right in front of me.
I think the constant search is for the community, and I have never really found it. I keep shuffling around thinking that the next move will be better. Of course, there are great communities all over the place, and I have lived in many, so I guess this inability to “find” one says more about me than the places I happen to land.
I know this, yet still, I spend hours on the internet searching for… “best small art towns”… “best place to make art” … “best art center”. Things get challenging (or too quiet) and I’m off to find the next “best” place. At some point I may get past that –or perhaps not??
My latest excuse to wander; “I can’t find anyone to learn from here, there are no classes, no one to study portraiture under, not enough action to feed off of…” Yesterday I found myself particularly anxious. I wanted someone to talk to that might understand me. Feeling a bit lost I went to the studio. I knew that no one was there but I didn’t know where else to go. On the table was “The Impressionist, a retrospective”. I had found it at the thrift store a few weeks ago. I finally opened it.
I no longer felt like talking. I was quickly swallowed up by, among many things, letters written by Monet. In one note he writes of being thrown out of his apartment and pleads for a close friend to send him money. He expresses utter despair and concerns about how he will care for his wife and young son.
Six months later there is another letter saying “I’m living like a fighting cock, surrounded by all that I love… We are too preoccupied with what we see and hear in Paris, however strong we are, and what I am doing here at least has the merit of not resembling anyone else’s work, at least I think not, because it will simply be the expression of what I personally feel. The further I progress, the more I regret the little I know: that is definitely the stumbling block.”
I’m in good company and looking forward to living like a fighting cock.
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