Fear of beginning is not the only fear

You may (dimly) recall last Monday’s blog post, which was about finding a use for the copious amounts of high-quality translucent marker paper (beyond its original intended use in graphic design) that had been bequeathed to Backstreet Arts. I’ve done nothing on the project, of course. Part of it is the holidays and errands and just real life. Part of it is a cluttered art desk, although of course I could go down to Backstreet Arts during their hours if I really wanted to work.

But a large part of my procrastination is the fear of “wasting art supplies.” Growing up I always had paper and pencil and crayons and oils and even pastels, but those supplies were mostly limited, especially oils — I rarely painted anything larger than 9x12.

Even now, when I have the income to keep myself in materials, I still hesitate to use art supplies just to play and explore, that is, waste them on what is not going to be a finished, respectable product.

In a way, it’s a pre-ABANDONMENT: we don’t start because we’re afraid of the ABORTIVE ATTEMPT not being worth it. (And that’s a dark loop I had not noticed before this very moment.) If I use that whole pad of watercolor paper and the whole tube of cerulean blue just to “explore” and “expand my technique” and none of it works… what then? I’m out of watercolor paper and cerulean blue, that’s what, and that’s what most of us have to live with.

This dilemma is one reason that the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program was such an influence on me as an artist, as a creative human. There, the art department showered you with material. You could paint large canvases — and we did. You could make twenty crappy pots and end up with one brilliant one — and we did. It was liberating, even if we had to go home to our shoebox of supplies.

SIDEBAR: In my years as an administrator at GHP, I would frequently visit the art studios. The kids were far more talented than we were 51 years ago (better instruction since then, my old GHP teacher says), and it amused me each summer to think of the dads/moms who were going to have to rent a U-Haul to get their child’s art home.

This dilemma is also part of the genius of Kim Ramey’s Backstreet Community Arts, where those who have no access to art supplies or space at all can come and paint/sew/metalwork/leathercraft/et al. The cost of that space and those materials to those artists is zero. This is freedom.

The hard truth is that our art is often like dandelions and oak trees: we have to produce dozens/scores/hundreds of seeds that will not survive to adulthood. “Waste” is part of the process.

So the next question is: How can we afford this waste? I’ll offer some ideas in Monday’s post, and if you have ideas, share them in comments.