"The Tropics" Hopefully the next step

Everything is a process and lessons in stages. When I turned to the Visual arts about nine years ago, I took a step away from the written word and began experimenting with collage since I don't know how to draw too well. Borrowing other people's images to make my art made sense since I could alter the images and make them mine, but I always felt I was cheating in a way, not letting my own inner voice come out.

I would still doodle once in a while and find my notebooks filled with funny things. I should have made those my art journals since they were usually made while on the phone or jumping across town, a jotting down of ideas, phrases, quotes and mementoes picked up here and there.

Eventually I became tired of the clutter in my art studio. I had more collage images than I could ever use in a lifetime and scraps everywhere as well as thousands of found objects, jewelry parts, and embellishments. Something was telling me I needed to simplify; the clutter was making me anxious and what I was seeking in Art was a release from stress not more of it.

Yet all those years had to go by before I set that aside.

It is only the beginning of a new exploration. But it is a Hope. A hope that I can finally create my own style, voice my own inner stories and visions. Maybe what I need is to completely step away from all art for a while, let things decant in my mind, read a bit, watch a few good missed movies, listen to music and come back to it when I have envisioned a few pieces.

I am full of expectation.