Oriole Painting, Done!

The AGL summer sizzler show hangs this weekend, and just under the wire the Oriole painting is done. My 'production goals' are waaaay behind, which I'm not happy about, but the reasons they are make me smile. It's the time of year when my garden takes a lot of time, since I love it and it inspires my art, giving me fodder for the creativity mill, how can I get down on myself!
Teaching tends to slow down as soon as the kids get out for the summer, which will be in a week or two, I'll be able to pick up the pace then.
I do love teaching, if you've ever gotten me going about how important I think fostering creativity is... lets just say I get very passionate, very quickly, and can rant for hours.

As usual the summer is just one big crazy art show, after another. I try to just focus on one at a time, but I find my self in the position of not having enough art for my commitments if I'm not very careful, hence the production goals.

I was speaking with a woman the other day who said "I used to be an artist" I found that statement very puzzling, "used to be"? She saw my puzzlement and clarified " I just don't have inspiration hit me any more" "inspiration hit me"?

Inspiration doesn't hit me very often either, the Oriole being one of those rare occasions when it did. Inspiration for me anyway comes from going to my studio, and getting to work. There is a fab talk on TED by Elizabeth Gilbert the woman who wrote 'eat love pray' where she says that every day she shows up and gets to work, whether the 'genius' (original definition is a spirit or entity that inspires) joins her or not, at lest she was there. The more consistent she is, the more consistent the 'genius' is. Me too.