Late Bloomer

My friend Nancy sent me a link to a New Yorker article (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/20/081020fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true) which talks about the differnces between a artisty prodigy and a late bloomer. I encourage you to read it.

I often consider myself a late bloomer artistically speaking. I didn't really get the calling until my late 30's and by that point I had had several careers of varying levels of success. The path I was on could have easily provided me with a stable, comfortable life. Then I began painting. I painted my first portrait, of my grandfather, the day I heard he was terminally sick. Although this painting is immature in many ways, it reminds me of the emotions I had that day. And it shows. For that, the painting is not for sale.

I continued painting for years on the side as a hobby. The hobby began to take over my thoughts. The urge to create became large. I found corporate jobs that allowed me to create more with my desk job but with time, I no longer found that satisfying. I had to break out on my own, in more ways than one. In Fall of 2008, I found myself alone in the middle of Madrid, a city I had dreamt of visiting since my first day of Spanish class in high school. It was a dream come true. It was also incredible lonely. My Spanish sucked. And even though I was attending classes all day long, my language abilities could not progress fast enough. I spent most of the time alone, no conversation.

Admitting to myself that I probably would not be hitting the nightlife in Madrid, I went to the incredible museums the city has to offer. The modern art museum housed collections of some of my favorite paintings such as Picasso, Miró, Gris, Dalí, etc. I stared for an hour at "Guerneca" by Picasso. I wanted to do that. I looked at it closer. I eventually began to walk back to my hotel with the paintings racing through my head. This is what I wanted to do. No doubts at all. Then all the insecurities hit circling the one fateful question, "How?"

So the plan was set and has been activated since then. Today is one year after my trip to Spain. I'm painting full time but not yet selling in large quantities. I'm looking for a balance between working as a consultant to feed my stomach and working as an artist to feel my soul. I know it will all work out in the end and the end isn't point. It is the process of creating and re-creating time and again is what I am looking forward to.

I Feel Stagnate, True or False?

I have started hanging me art work on my own walls. I always have but now I'm doing more as I am running out of space to store the unsold work. Ironically, I'm procrastinating in selling. Part of me views my current work as experimental and not yet good enough for public display much less to sell. At the same time, I know the quality of many of my pieces is very high and usually elicits a response from viewers. I'm floating in the sea of lack of confidence. Until I change that, I suspect my work will not sell well from the mere fact that I probably do not give my work the recognition it deserves.

I have seen this manifest itself in many ways over the past few months, procrastination, lethargy, self sabotage, avoidance, excuses and even in a few cases, straight you refusal to do more. The only true answer is that at the moment, I feel vulnerable. I am in the transition phase where I am no longer a office going corporate guy but I'm not fully the self supporting artist as well. To push forward will require another leap of faith, jumping off the cliff into the world of retail, be it galleries, on-line or other avenues to sell my work. I think I may have been waiting for someone to give me a little shove but honestly I don't want that. I want to stand up and take a step, any step. I want to break the stagnation that I feel.

Reality is however that I'm not stagnate, not even close. I keep myself busy (most days) and I work at creating new pieces, finishing up old ones, and slowly enter in the world of eBay. So, if I'm doing things in, what I feel is, the right direction, why do I have this nagging feeling of being stagnate? Impatience is a possible culprit. And the impatience may also be coupled with that fact that I know I can do more. I'm having problems adjusting my daily schedule and maintaining a high level of energy to do more. So I want things to change rapidly, but the more rapid things change, the more energy I expel to keep my balance. I wonder what would happen if I give a big push and allow myself to fall down. Falling down isn't all the bad. I'll surround myself with soft pillows so I won't get hurt.

I Expect You to Read This

A buzz word for me this week has been "expectations". I looked up the definition, which said, the act of expecting. That didn't explain it to me so I looked up "expecting".

1. a. To look forward to the probable occurrence or appearance of:
b. To consider likely or certain: expect to see them soon.
2. To consider reasonable or due:
3. To consider obligatory; require:
4. Informal To presume; suppose.

The last definition of the informal use, "to presume", triggered me. This is why I have been struggling with expecations lately, others expectations of me, and my expecations of others and myself. The focus is on the future and are often undeclared. (The undeclared expectations get me in trouble all the time.) All of a sudden, I see this word with a lot of power and influence now only on the future but also on how I feel and respond in the present and how I remember the past. It also impacts how I interact with others and the world. I gravitate towards people and situations where my expectations are fulfilled and drift away from situations where they are not. I end up manipulating my situation and my attitudes so that my expectations are realized one way or another.

If I expect something to happen tomorrow, and when tomorrow comes, something else had occurred, my expectations go unfulfilled. If my expectations continue to go unfulfilled, I remember that they have been lacking for a while and I noticed that my expectations change in such a way that I expect that they will be unfulfilled and thereby, I fulfill my new expectations, my expectation that my original expectations will not come true. My memory of the past influences what I want in the future. I don't want to be disappointed so I change the expectations to fit what "will" be coming along. On the flip side, if I often get what I want then over time, I learn to expect that I will get what I want. One way or another, my expectations will be realized. I heard it often described as writing my story. I have a story to that describes me, what has happened to me and what will happen to me. That story are my expectations.

So I throw in the exercise of focusing on the process and not the outcome and things get interesting for me. Expectations are focused on the future often outcomes. Therefore, the power of expectations may be reduced by concentrating on the here and now and doing instead of what might happen in the future. Wow! I can't imagine the impact of "letting go". My head is spinning a bit from all of this but I think there is something here. I wonder what is the impact of minimizing the effects of expectations. Perhaps that will free me to be more present in the moment and less critical in general. Perhaps this will help me "get out of the way" and let things unfold naturally. I don't think it is possible to eliminate expectations but I can see how changing them can play a pivotal role in the idea of positive thinking and manifestion. I can also see how reducing my concentration on them may change me to be more open and flexible.

When I sat down to write this afternoon, I had no idea what I was going to write about. I was without any expectations except that I would write something. I experienced exactly what I presupposed what would happen. It appears to me that my expectations were fulfilled once again.

Sell it on eBay!

Commercialism is a rush!

I just finished setting up my eBay Store for Nolan Studios (http://stores.ebay.com/nolanstudios). I expect to have items listed by the end of the week. I am currently experiencing a rush of adrenaline coupled with a bit of anxiety. This is uncharted territory for me. I like the idea of being a "shopkeeper." It feels so medieval. Since I quit my corporate job to focus on art full time, the past 3 months have been packed with first experiences and there seemed to be no end in sight. Change is coming faster and faster, and with it, I'm doing more and more. It seems to feed on each other. The more I do, the more things change. The more things change, the more I do. Along with it, I am gaining a rise in personal energy. Today was one of the most productive days I've had in ages or even perhaps ever. I'm very excited. Just one more day on the emotional roller coaster.

The excitement today is originating from the idea that it is possible to step outside of the conventional norm and thrive. I have been having doubts. What I mean by stepping outside the norm is being true to myself, deciding specifically not to follow the crowd or societal expectations, but to do my own "thing." I have hope now. Hope for the future, hope for the present. I am willing to try for the sake of trying, not for what might come out of it. I don't think I could have said that in the past. I always felt constrained, limited, suppressed, intimidated. Sure, I was successful, according to the definition of others, but I never felt that way. I always felt like I fell short. The truth is, I was falling short, according to my standards. And with falling short, I criticized myself and others. That didn't help AT ALL! If fact, I think it made things worse. I was so focus on the flaws of others, I distracted myself from seeing what I wanted, what I needed to work on, how I could be a better person, how I had the potential to make myself happy.

So what I noticed about being true to myself is that I have to let go. (No, this is not an ad for Alcoholic Anonymous - Let go, Let God. Never a bad idea however.) I have to let go of expectations, those I have for myself, those I have for others, and those others may have for me. Only then can I truly be true to myself, step outside convention and do my thing. I want to focus my energy on what I have control over, namely me. Everyone else can go do their thing while I do mine. This all sounds very good to me. I'm not there yet.

What does this have to do with eBay? Today, I let go of the negative comments I have heard that one cannot make money selling art on eBay. I think I may have even repeated it (if not believed it) myself. Before I pushed the button, a wave of anxiety hit me. That was all I needed to feel to KNOW this was the right thing to do. I threw away old expectations and beliefs based on hearsay and conjecture (I wonder how much fact actually lives in expectations) and pushed the button. Instantaneously, the anxiety turned into excitement for what may happen next, what door this may have opened. Old habits are hard to break but I think it is time for me to let go some more. I enjoy being an artist and a shopkeeper.

Allow Events to Change You

Week one is done and it was much more difficult than I ever imagined. This past week I took one of the suggestions from Bruce Mau's "Incomplete Manifesto for Growth" and tried to incorporate it into my life and observe the results of doing so.

"Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them."

For the first few days, I repeated to myself, "allow events to change you, allow events to change you." I noticed that I had changed the mantra to "be open to new events, be open to new events." A bit of a difference. I was looking, even searching for, new events or new opportunities to take advantage of and incorporate the tons of positive influence into my life. Although I did try a few new things and met several new people last week, nothing earth-shattering new occurred in my life. I was disappointed. I was poised to "accept it." I missed the point.

Let's get back to "allow events to change you." It isn't necessarily a new event or situation. It is being present in everyday tasks and familiar situations and experience a bit more out of them. I think that is how events may change me. I met new people in the course of my week, I heard some new ideas and I believe I made some new friends or at least new acquaintances. People, and their ideas, often inspire me or alter how I currently see things. So that part worked. I also was less intimidated by new situations since I was searching for a "changing event." I found myself more open and as a result more approachable. I noticed that I had bursts of extreme positivity and two days of amazing energy levels which resulted in very productive days.

By Friday, however, I was tired. I think I may have been trying too hard. I was running in every direction looking for something new, novel, change enhancing that I forgot to pace myself. I also lost sight, as I mentioned before, for the ordinary, which as I now type this, may have more affect on me that some big new experience. I also felt uneasy. Change is uncomfortable, unfamiliar.

Overall, the event that had the most impact on me last week was deciding to attempt to live this suggestion. It helped me focus, to me more aware, to be more open, to be searching. Have I noticed a life altering impact? No. Or at least not yet. The nice part is since I now have clarified the objective, be open to change, not necessarily something new (although I'm sure that would work too), I think this may be a mantra I will keep. I suspect over time, allowing events to change me will have an enormous, positive impact.

This week I will focus on: "Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth."

Safe Harbors

Most mornings before I start my work day, I read several inspirational or motivational quotes to help set a positive tone for the day. Some of my favorites come from The Foundation for a Better Life which are posted on my website, www.nolanstudios.com/dailyquote.html. This morning I received the following quote by William G.T. Shedd 1820-1894. "A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

It got me thinking this morning as I was finishing up an art piece (I'm an artist but I'll discuss that in another entry). So often I start an art piece aiming low, attempting to do something, whether paintings or resin work, that I have done before, something conservative. I kind of know in advanced what the end result will be and how the piece will look when I'm finished. But a lot of my work that I enjoy, appreciate and am most proud of are those where I didn't go in with any preconcieved expectations. They are surprises. Or at least, I recognize that I was in my "comfort zone" and consciously decided to move a little bit outside. I end up doing something I having done before, sometimes big, sometimes small. But in the end, I have a piece of art that is completely an original and I have a great sense of satisfaction in producing it. If I never took a step back and left my "harbor", the art piece would not even exist.

What I've also noticed that I may fall back into the familiar often but I only have to push myself a little once in a while and, over time, I began to see big changes. Both in my work and in my personal views. In doing so, my style of art I produce has shifted from pop art paintings to modern/contemporary resin work, all accomplished little by little, not in one big push.

I have found an easy prescription for these life nudges that seems to work for me. When I recognize that I'm in a rut, when I am merely going through the motions but not feeling very excited or energized by what I am doing or about to do, I find it helps me to write it down. I used to use a formal document but now I use any piece of scrap paper I have lying around. The idea is by writing it down, I acknowledge what I am feeling. It also helps to see it. It becomes real and not just feeling flying around in my head. After I can see it on paper, I reread the sentence(s) and figure out which part I'm not happy with (or worse, bored) and ask myself "what if I change...". For example, I was working on a series of abstract pieces that consisted of layers of different swatches of colors but they all started with a black background. What if I used a different color as the background? I chose white. The result was very cool. The piece felt lighter, more vibrant, and more crisp. If I had stayed with black (which I still use all the time - I trust it) I would not have this other option at my finger tips. Of course, now I'm really curious what would happen if I start with RED! Maybe I'll try that someday but for now, I ventured out of my harbor and when the winds blow again, I set out to open seas.