Life is short
When you were young, adults may have asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up. The traditional answer was often a doctor, lawyer, teacher, firefighter, librarian, police officer or a nurse.
But no one ever asked, “How do you want to be when you grow up?”
Well, how about ‘happy’?
Making art was about pure joy when we were small. No expectations or limitations. It was about you and the colours, the paper, the medium and experimentation. And it was so much fun!
Then you grew up and work, family, community commitments and stresses intervened.
Maybe you continued to follow the initial thread of an idea with the goal of creating and finishing…something. You were going to follow through, really. But something came up and you set your art and your fun projects aside. You promised yourself that someday, you would get back to it.
There are so many other, more important things to do, you told yourself.
One of the great song writers, former Beatle John Lennon, reportedly once said, “life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”
But still, we waste time and procrastinate.
When an actor asked esteemed early 20th Century, British film director, Alfred Hitchcock, “What’s my motivation?” Hitch is reported to have said, “Your pay cheque.”
That’s a good place to start when you ask what happened to your artistic goals. So ask yourself, what’s the pay off when you continue with your art journal?
Focus on that.
Creating something you love can make you feel happy. It can make life more fun.
You’ll feel more confident when you pursue your art and complete a new page in your journal. You’ll like yourself more, simply because you finished something that you started.
“Your life is short and rare and amazing and miraculous, and you want to do really interesting things and make really interesting things while you’re still here.”
When you make your creativity a habit, it’s easier to keep going.
The Greek physician, Hippocrates, (460 BCE) recognized for the Hippocratic oath once said, “Art is long and life is short” (in Latin, the words were actually, ‘Ars longa vita brevis’).
The art we create changes us. The change in perspective impacts our relationships.
Art endures.
And if gathering supplies and collecting media and spending time making new pages in your art journal makes you happy, there’s absolutely no excuse not to start.
