The Wall

occasional euphoria  48x48  mixed media and collage 

It happens to me EVERY time.  I meet a huge deadline:  The work is made - the titles are fussed over and assigned - the image cataloging is completed - the paintings are delivered - the opening reception attended - the small talk is done.  I return to the studio after a few days of R and R. Then.........  nothing ....*crickets chirping*

I have hit the proverbial WALL.  Paint that seemed to flow freely is now being fumbled into mud.  Large canvases that seemed less intimidating a week or two ago, now glare at me from the studio wall with their looming emptiness.  Why does this happen to me so often?  I have other things coming up...personal goals to achieve...a quest to find more representation...juried show deadlines...ideas floating in my head (rather, they were there - now...*poof*).  It's not like I don't have things to do.  Yet, for whatever reason I have drawn a complete blank.  I am spent.  I feel like that empty space, devoid of work-in-progress,  is someone else's studio space.  That girl with all the energy has just disappeared.

Truthfully, I have been working through some extreme sadness throughout the last year and during that year I have produced a rather large body of work. (They don't look sad... that's how I work it out). Someone said to me at the opening: "These paintings are so joyful."   Painting has always been my therapy -  - and way cheaper than a shrink.  The sad situation that tears at my heart is still a huge part of mine and my family's world.  It only makes sense that I should be able to step back into the studio, focus my energy and do what I've been doing for years...."trudging through the muck"  with a paint brush.

Maybe I just need another day or two...or maybe it's time to do a little late spring cleaning until "it" comes to me as to what to do next.  Or maybe, I need to take a hammer to that "wall" and bust through that sucker.