Sometimes events are so simple that they become complicated. It is the second day of the New Year. After a respite from all computer work, during which I concentrated on stitching my newest art work to the exclusion of all other tasks, I now sit at the computer surrounded by countless scraps of paper.
I am an artist. That being said, as the years go by I have come to understand how that has always defined me, even before I knew to identify myself with that word. As I write these words, my room has just flooded with sunlight. That brightness illuminates and crystallizes the thoughts that have been slipping in and out of view all day–- that sense that the creative person has when the image, the song, the poem, the words are floating, in a mist, there but just out of reach, ready to grasp. The light comes and throws them into stark relief.
I teach art, all aspects of it, as well as creating my own art. I also help other creative people find methods and systems to help their creative passions take shape. By finding my own way, I light the way for them.
This necessitates day to day time planning on my end. I am a person who can take flight into the cerebral and get lost in bits of fabric, paint, color, material, and ideas for days–the passage of time loses all meaning–-and I come up for air hours or days later, wondering whether I remembered to take the keys out of the truck.
But I have to block off my time for that. I must find balance between my art and all the pieces of life that allow me to create it. My students and clients teach me at least as much as I teach them, if not more. And, of course there is family, house, the electric bill, and perhaps a ditch or two to dig and maybe a driveway to shovel, wood to bring in, grass to cut…
When I was in graduate school at Rhode Island School of Design, I discovered in my final year that I was able to go deep into research to write articles and my thesis, OR deep into studio to create art, OR deep into what I call “the other side” ( commonly referred to as left brain) to get my classes prepared, my teaching done, and the clerical side of gallery shows and my finances.
In the years since then, my life has gotten richer (which means more things in it). I am looking forward to the challenge. My watchword for 2023 is going to be “clarity”. I know that there has been a great deal of research done on the right brain left brain theory. Some say that the theory is incorrect, or inaccurate. It is difficult for me to imagine that a brain is so neatly divisible. I step, seamlessly, from logic to windmills of creative flight.
When I get lost, sudden brightness, either from within my spirit or from the world around me, always comes to light the way.
Carol LeBaron
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