I had a disappointing rejection this morning which has shaken my confidence somewhat. Especially since a couple of days ago I had a wonderful surprise, I received an e-mail to say that Golden River had sold at the West Midlands Open. Amazing how one bit of bad news can so easily cancel out the good. Now I'm struggling to maintain my self-confidence, and struggling to remain optimistic about my life and my art.
I've started a new drawing but with the rejection coming hard on the heels of my failed drawing, I'm feeling pretty hopeless really. I knew working full time would take its toll on my creative work but it's hard to accept the reality of my situation. Time is as much an ingredient as inspiration, perspiration, paint, paper or ink. And I just don't have enough of it at the moment.
Ideas still swim in my head, but I feel like drowning them again. The Ivy drawing on this page has no soul, I'm making it with a deadline in mind, but don't have much faith in it because the passion and the belief are not there. I have a romantic idea of making a new drawing based on 3 photographs I took last year at Walberswick nature reserve. I was looking through my photographs the other night and they immediately made me think of 'and all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire'. I don't know why I love that poem so much, its still heat and its sense of suspended reality, as if the narrator stands before a precipice or that still moment beyond which, something pivotal is about to happen. Perhaps it's that.
3 comments:
Be of good heart, Kay. I love that poem, too. Perhaps it's the combination of steam age nostalgia, English ruralism, and the awareness of how terrible events in the wider world were?
I think artists are so much alike. It's hard not to let the rejections magnify and overrun the good. You are incredible at what you do though! We won't let you forget that! BTW....I still love that tree!
Thank you both for your reassuring comments. I'm really, really grateful for your kindness.
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