Painting a Day: What Would It Take

Day 1 (only 29 more to go)[/caption] A common theme among my fellow participants in the Artistica Bootcamp is that above and beyond everything else (beyond the marketing, beyond the selling, beyond the this or that) beyond everything else is creating the work.

Creating. The. Work.

On paper this is so incredibly easy. Just do the work.

But if Just Do the Work was as easy as it sounded, more of us would be super fit and quad lingual.

In reality, doing the work is hard. It’s because there is life to be lived. Dinners to cook. Partners to spend time with. Art is a job, but unlike a job where if you don’t show up at a certain time everyday you get fired, the only thing that happens if you don’t show up in art is that you don’t get better. That’s not quite the same motivation as a pink slip.

So then how do we create a structure that understands our weaknesses and acknowledges the difficulties both external and internal, and helps us overcome them to do the work?

For March, it’s going to be a painting a day.  With a painting a day, suddenly my art must become a top priority. I must look at everyday and make sure I can carve out enough time to make the goal. And because it’s a finite amount of time (30 days), it encourages me to keep at it. (“You only have to make it 30 more days.")

So for March, the challenge is on. I am going to try and create a piece of shareable work each and every day. Some will be complex. Some will be very simple. But each and every day I will be creating something. And as I’m doing this, I will see what in my life adjusts. It’s not just an art experiment, it’s a life experiment.

Here are my (somewhat) arbitrary rules:

1. Painting doesn’t have to be finished, but it has to be close.

2. Paintings don’t have to be aaaaamazing.

3. I can have started the painting during march. (So if I get to paint 5 hours one day and only 30 minutes another day, I can finish something I’ve started prior.) Want to paint along?