the long road of creativity

So what if you love doing something but it doesn't pay the bills?
I guess then it takes creativity to make your life what it is supposed to be.
There was a beautiful article in the New Yorker yesterday by Malcolm Gladwell about late bloomers.
Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker
and one of his conclusions is often, in midlife when genius is discovered, it actually is that the person had been doing this work for decades, and usually the support of an angel in the form of a family member, had helped them along.
I think in the Renaissance it was called a patron.
I also took away the feeling that many artists like Cezanne just painted because they had to, they were asking questions that their art could answer; and that it might take a life time of experimenting to get to a new idea and to the place they were headed.
My longing seems to point me to collage and journal making.
Somehow, the questions I have are addressed in making these messy collages and writing about the mystery of it all.
I came to this practice after years of doing other things, which sometimes makes me sad like I missed out so many years of creating.
Instead, I try to remind myself that all the mishaps along the journey were perhaps not mishaps, but road markers to get me to where I am now.
I try to be grateful for the curves and dips along the road, because they are my teachers.
Sometimes, I wonder why I need such stressful teachers, but then, it passes and something good fills my day.
and the questions keep coming. . . . I am eager to look for the answers in my art journal.




"I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else." --Joseph Campbell