It used to be that when I felt "blocked" (sitting in front of a blank canvas with nothing coming out of me), I concluded that I wasn't a true artist - it wasn't really bound into my guts. Now I realize that it's something almost all artists (and writers, musicians, etc) suffer through. It's so reassuring and liberating to know that.
But being blocked still sucks. I had some great quote from Chuck Close scribbled in a notebook, which I now can't seem to locate, but the gist of it was that creative block was for amateurs, and the real artists just keep working through it. So I tell myself it's okay when I feel blank, but don't allow myself to wallow in it anymore. Since I have the attention span of a gnat and am always trying different mediums, it's easy enough just to start working on something completely different. So last week I just walked away from painting for a while, and pulled out the clay again. I made a big pile of little pieces and filled up the kiln - how exciting! It's such a roller coaster of the joys of discovery and the disappointment of screw-ups in this learning process.
