Blogging vs Arting

For no reason in particular, I glanced at the number of blog posts I have written over these 15 years. The number, inexplicably large, looked familiar. 

I think that's rather close to the number of paintings I have done (also an inexplicably large number), I thought to myself.

I clicked over to my painting spreadsheet, a coveted document in the cloud where every single painting is recorded along with details of who owns them all, how much they sold for, and various other scraps of information. I scrolled to the bottom of the long list and found the current total. The difference between the number of blogs I have written and the number of paintings I have completed is a mere 10.

It is easy to come to the conclusion that I am a creature of habit. I picked up the writing habit when Dylan, our older son, was in the hospital. It became a way of chronicling our lives and a form of mental health (for me). An editor could scour the archives and scrape together more than enough material for a rather boring biography, at least of my last 15 years. I continue to write though the frequency varies depending on the things happening in our lives.

I started my painting habit back in 2014. In a way, my commitment to painting was a form of self chastisement. I recognized that I had done art inconsistently through my life and that it was a gift that was being neglected. I made a commitment to myself to do at least a painting a week back in 2014. Had I kept that promise, I would have just over 500 paintings on my spreadsheet. It probably goes without saying that there are a lot more. 

Being creative - whether that is through writing or painting, acting or taking photographs - is my way of being in the world. In BEING I'm always PRODUCING, something.