Dancing to the Studio

Today is the the opposite of Friday. On Friday I was looking for anything to do except get in the studio and start working on my new painting series -- doubts and fears! Today I can't wait to get back to the studio.

I woke up at 2AM all excited like I was a kid going to the Puyallup Fair. (Interestingly, in Tacoma they gave all kids a day off of school to go to the fair.) I had a great day in the studio on Friday. The work I had done to prepare this series really paid off and I got several paintings started and I am really pleased with how the are turning out. I can't wait to keep this going.

So the fear was misplaced... maybe. But why do I always have this apprehension to start a new work or series? I would think that eventually I would trust the process and myself. I guess I just have insecurities that are not that easy to ignore. The lesson is even when I am afraid I need to just get started and take the next step. This lesson has been true all my life. The greatest joys and accomplishments of my life started with doubts and taking risks. A few spectacular failures started that way also but that's just part of the excitement.

"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt