Susan M Gibbons

2-18-2020 I played today...  played in the studio after spending most of the morning printing my linocuts.  It felt good to just play and not worry about the end result - just having fun with the medium and imagery.  It's nice to take the pressure off and just create for the sheer fun of it.  Not that other times aren't fun but how many times are we creating for a show, commission, or have some other deadline to fulfill and not relaxed enough to let things just happen?  Sometimes playing gets put to the wayside and we get caught up in the production and not the process.  Today was fun, today was pure play and it was a blast!  It was messy too!  I was working on a monotype with soft pastel.  Since the ink was waterbased, the pastel worked differently than with oilbased inks which made it a fun time of experimenting.  Nevertheless, it was a nice break from the intensity of what I've been working on with my Stirring Series and Lamentation Series.  This had no expectations

2-10-2020 I turn 60 this week.  I'm excited to turn that age for I don't see it as negative but as a positive point in my life.  It means I've been granted to live this long and been able to have a family, friends, and of course, be an artist for the majority of those years.  As I reflect on my life artistically, I'm coming to the conclusion that this journey I'm on is really about process and the experience of making art.  The 'product' is the outcome of this experience but this 'product' records the movement and markmaking of my creativity, whether it be painting, sculpture, or something else.  I've also come to realize that I don't need to come up with something original, just something honest.  The originality comes with honesty; it comes from being in tuned with who I am and how I want to express myself.  For so long I thought that I had to create something that had a cooresponding concept or idea.  I'm realizing that I am enough.

“If you hear a voice within you saying, ‘You are not a painter,’ then by all means paint, boy, and that voice will be silenced.” ~ Vincent van Gogh Ever have the doubt that you're not a painter or an artist? Or that you can't do it?  It happens all the time.  In fact, I've been told that if you don't hear that voice, or doubt yourself, you're in trouble!  For there is always something to learn, something to help you grow in your craft.  Once we think we've made it, we've stagnated and that is not a good place for an artist or anyone to be.  I can't imagine staying with one thing within my work and becoming stagnant.  I'd get bored and I would fear that the work would become mediocre. I think that doubt can be a good thing, something that we can embrace.  Doubt allows us to think about what we are doing, critically reviewing our work, our practice, and our process.  It gives us a gift, if you will, of being able to change ourselves into