Art

I have this yearning for an artistic outlet. I kinda have a split personality (but not in the crazy freak sort of way). The job I have now is completely the furthest from "artistic" as you can get. I spend MOST of my day typing - mostly numbers, and some words. I look at a paper and translate it into a database. I enter the info from the paper into the database. Wow. Lame. It's weird because I work for a graphic design company and everyone around me has an "artistic" mindset. Even though my job is completely boring and far from that mindset, I still KNOW for a fact that I have an artistic person inside of me.

I wish that I could find the specific type of "art" that I'm supposed to do. In highschool I considered graphic design as a potential future occupation. I don't know now that I would like it very much. I do think I would be good at it because I have the "technical" mindset squared away and I also have an artistic yearning inside of me. I've always thought that being a pastry chef or even ANY kind of chef would be SO FUN. I would love to paint and wish that I had ANY skill involving painting or drawing. I really really really do NOT have any skill in that area. Making jewelry has been something I've really wanted to do for the past couple of years. I bought a bunch of beads and some books but I've only made a few pieces of jewelry. I think what it comes down to is that my logical side convinces my artistic side that it's not "good enough" to succeed. It's because making good art takes RISK and part of me won't let myself do that. (It also takes lots of MONEY sometimes!) I love to watch So You Think You Can Dance and I always loved going to my friend's dance recitals as a kid. I love going to Glazed Creations and painting pottery!!! I look at Etsy.com (my favie website - all handmade stuff for sale), and dream of making beautiful things like the things that are on there. I love shopping and looking at clothes. I feel like when I see a really nice print on a shirt or a well structured dress or a beautiful blouse it's like looking at a beautiful painting for me. (Now if it only looked as good as I'd like it to look ON me.) :) I have an artistic person STUCK inside of me and I have no idea how to let it out. I like it all - yet I only have a tiny big of skill. Somehow I need to figure out how to hone in on whatever skills I have and just as importantly, learn how to develop them. I need that outlet!

Sometimes I just want to take out a piece of paper and some paint and paint something. It ends up being the same rainbow with the clouds on either side or "happy tree" that I used to paint as a kid. Either that or I just streak a bunch of colors across the page. Sometimes the color ones turn out nice... but what am I going to do with it? I mean, seriously, we're talking like... a piece of computer paper and some WATERCOLORS.

Last time I busted out the paper & paint for some art "outlet" time, this is what came of it... a beautiful portrait of me and Ryan:

Ryan loved my painting so much that he hung it on our refrigerator

(using the strategically place magnets, as you can see).

He's a doll.

As you can see, I probably shouldn't pursue painting as a long-term career choice or even as a hobby. :)