Flying Girl Begins to See, or There is a Pattern

Flying Girl Begins to See, or There is a Pattern
3/9/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on Paper, 5"x8"

Holy Cow, my peoples.

I'm a little weirded out right now. A little confronted with long held, maybe not so true beliefs.

I'm selling art.

I'm a WORKING artist.

Do you know, I went to a liberal arts college instead of an art school because I didn't think it was possible to make money as an artist without "selling out." This is the legacy of being the daughter of a starving artist.

You see... it doesn't matter where you start out on this journey, you still have to get through your shiite.

So, here I am, and if it keeps going in this fashion, I will actually be making a living at this. A small living, but that's all I wanted.

I'm having a hard time believing that just sitting here is producing money.

But then, I step back from my issues and feelings (like how I feel like I am wasting my time, still, when I am sitting at the computer, the way I wasted my time by reading book after book. I was a guilty reader as a child) and I start to see how everything I have done-- not just in the last 10 weeks, but in the last 18 months since I hatched the etsy idea, or in the last 20 years since getting out of college, or even my whole life-- maybe even my ancestors' lives, has moved me towards this point. (How's that for a run on sentence?)

If I didn't think I could make a living as an artist, would I have studied English or become a teacher? Would I have left New York City to encounter another life? If my own personal economy hadn't crashed and burned, would I have thought about entering the marketplace? Even if I hadn't been so scared and put it off so long, trying to be prepared, would I have developed my work into what it has become?

I don't know. I don't know what this pattern of my life looks like or what it means or where it is going.

But I can see there is a pattern. I can see how things are connected.

Oh. Plus I love swirls. I used to fill notebooks in school with all sorts of swirls and mandalas and paisleys and grids and whatever fell out of my fingers and pen. So when the prompt for Illustration Friday was intricate, this is what fell out of my brush. If you look closely, you will see that the background is very similar to that last painting's background, but I needed to do "intricate" so I tried something unexpected. I like something about how the way it came out.

I also wanted to thank you all for your support. I am very thankful to all of you, long time readers, or new ones, buyers and lookers. I've decided I really do love the internet.

Oh yeah, and I'm posting the Roadblocks paintings today, so keep your eye out. I'll do this one, too.