The great thing about art is that it can be done even when you’re recovering from surgery! Not right away, it took a good 2 weeks for me to start to be able to move around and not be completely uncomfortable and a bit more time to be in a position where I was able to hold a sketchbook for a while. The initial recovery time was nice though, because I could truly relax, as I wasn’t able to do much of anything. I was also able to come up with ideas and get motivated even while not being able to actually create. Sometimes a break from creating is very motivating. This time gave me the opportunity to contemplate and reflect, which is so valuable. I completed these sketches and two paintings while laying on the couch… LOL. These sketches will be the foundation for future paintings.

Sometimes I think drawing is pretty boring, but having a sketchbook is essential. Often, when I end up with a painting I really love that actually turned out decent – it’s because I planned it in my sketchbook first. This planning is usually a loose drawing with a general composition mapped out. Spontaneous paintings with no plans don’t often turn out well for me, though I find the process enjoyable. This is really ironic, because when I was a little kid I thought that’s what a ‘genius’ artist did – they would just paint like magic and it would turn out flawlessly with little effort. I didn’t see the years of work and the hours spent. So funny how completely ignorant my expectations were. And of course as a kid, I was very impatient and wanted to do things well with little effort, so I guess it’s not surprising. The idea of being inspired and quickly finishing a masterpiece is very appealing, but it’s just not reality.

That’s the real value of committing to an artistic endeavor, the growth you experience. Nothing can substitute your own experience with something. It’s pure magic. You go through it, you begin to understand it and develop through it. It’s not all positive, either. Over the years, there were times I have felt like complete shit doing art. Same thing with music. The doubts that came up in my mind, the trying and failing over and over again (is definitely hard on the ego), but without this process you will never get better. Thoughts about something can’t touch the actual experience of it and neither can being told about it or watching someone else do it. So much of life seems to be about belief and ideology, we are in a habit of living in our minds instead of experiencing what is actually in front of us most of the time. I’ve been working on this for years, but I am still noticing that so much is based on things I’ve been told and just accepted, not based in direct experience and forming my own opinion. My experience with art is just one example of this.

Even making the commitment to art many years ago was a challenge. If I wanted it, why the doubts? What was I waiting for, exactly? It took years for me to take my own passions and interests seriously. I realized it was because I have been told something negative about art all my life. ‘It’s frivolous, it’s not useful to others, it’s childish, it’s wasteful, blah, blah, blah’. Often it wasn’t even being outright told these things, it was much more subtle than that, many impressions over years and years from the beginning of my life. But I don’t give a fuck about that anymore. Especially after having cancer.

Fuck that.

So glad I didn’t wait until retirement. Will I even have a retirement??? This is what I mean about living in the mind. I could have kept telling myself what I absorbed over a lifetime from others, saying ‘I’ll do it later’ and it would have never happened.