Every once in a while I win the battle with myself. I think it is the one internal lifelong conflict that (in my superstitious belief) if I should ever overcome it I will have learned my life lesson and die. It is ever-present in my artistic expression, my two selves in constant tug-of-war.
One side is the Conservative. The offspring of a girl growing up poor during the Depression era; be sparing, be careful to preserve all, save the scraps, stiff upper lip, stay within the lines.
The other side is the Bohemian. The free spirit who screams to do pornographic shock art, damn the torpedoes, damn society’s rules, let me create my masterpiece free from the constraints of [fill in the blank] anything and everything. The ultimate fucku statement.
The Conservative pays the bills. She harangues and berates incessantly, work, work, work, behave yourself. Produce the little safe, meaningless bread-&-butter pieces. Stay middle-of-the-road, make what everybody else does, follow the trend. All the while envious of the Bohemian’s precociousness and too fearful to step out on a limb. The pallid wallflower who wishes she had the nerve to dance like a wild wanton gypsy in the firelight.
It is, in fact, the jewelry that the Bohemian makes that sells the fastest. The pendant that was made with the force of passive-aggressive spite and anger against societal shackles is bought up in a snap. When the Bohemian manages to slip through the cracks and play, she creates with licentious ecstasy, childlike glee, reckless spontaneity, giving birth to an orgy of sensual color and texture in her creation. It is the original piece that is created with a tangible, palpable passion that is so mesmerizing and desirable to my clientele.
It is this ongoing struggle between the two that boils relentlessly inside me. I understand that somehow I must get them to balance equally, to work together, to blend into one and become whole, but as of yet they stubbornly refuse. At this point, Conservative needs to relax and give the rope some slack and let Bohemian do what she does best.
Just the act of engaging in the process of creating art for the pure joy of creating needs to be practiced regularly. It is this action of “being in the moment” of creation that produces brilliance, life, originality, authentic expression, true ART.