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An email from one of my newsletter subscribers asking if I was still sending out my newsletters struck a nerve with me. Because while the abstract answer is "yes", in reality, the answer is "no" - since I haven't written a newsletter or a blog entry in many months. One could say that so far, 2011 has been my year of hibernation. Sometimes, despite our best intentions, our plans, our hard work - the goal we work toward -  is picked up by a great gust of wind and carried farther away. It may be no coincidence that the past year has been one of nearly constant winds here on the northern Colorado front range. When a zephyr blows off the mountains and across the high plains, the best you can do is hunker down and wait it out.

And so that is what I must do. So far this year, the birth of a granddaughter (who lives with us), the death of my dear mother-in-law, a new job and a chronic back problem have conspired to force me to make some choices. Although part of what I do for my "day job" involves teaching artists how to market themselves and their work, when push came to shove, the marketing part of my own art career had to be back-burnered. Really, taken completely off the stove for awhile.  That's because the choice I was confronted with was - Paint, or Write About Painting. I chose Paint.

A funny thing happened - something I hadn't really expected. The less I communicated with others, the more personal my work became. Without thinking of things like "will this piece be saleable", I instead just painted what my heart desired. Sometimes happy, sometimes full of grief, sometimes impatient, sometimes frustrated, sometimes confused - but always just about expression. Lots of what I painted is painful to look at - growing pains.

I have long held the belief that our bodies get sick when we don't give ourselves the "down time" we need. And that things in life get hard when we resist the flow. As I look at what the Universe has thrown at me, I have come to realize that all the boulders in my way are there to slow me down, make me live in the present, make me focus on what is Really Important - which, in the case of my art, is my painting.

Painting has become much more than a "product" to sell. Perhaps beginning in 2006 with my equine spirit series, I've been trying to get to a truth in my work. I feel the work I am doing now is headed in the right direction. I still ping-pong between landscape, animals, abstracts. And I've even added figures into some paintings. But the difference right now - and for me it is a big difference - is I am not worrying that every painting that I do doesn't "fit" in with other paintings. From a marketing standpoint, what I am doing is pure suicide. Galleries and collectors like to know what to expect. And I don't blame them.  But right now, my painting is about me. It is my journey, my quest, my vision.  And if, along the way, someone sees something that resonates with them and they want to purchase it, I will be thrilled. But if that doesn't happen, I am fine with that, too.

Earlier this month I closed down my Cafe Press store. Although I will continue to write when the spirit moves me, I will no longer drive myself with the fury of my own self-imposed task-master. I will give myself some slack, and allow myself to create from the source of truth within me.  I have been thinking seriously about cutting two of my galleries - a strange concept for someone who worked so hard to get INTO galleries. But right now, I find them limiting. If paintings don't sell, I worry that I'm not painting the right thing, or that my paintings suck. If a painting does sell, then I think, "I must paint another like that." Which puts stress on me. If I am painting for no one but myself, then all I have to do is please myself.

I can hear the grumbles of other artists, gallery owners - even my past "me", admonishing me that painting for oneself is all very good and well, but unless I want to be a starving artist, I have to paint for my market. But here's the deal - as long as I am painting for someone else, I will always be stuck retelling someone else's story. When I go within and paint my vision, paint from my heart, paint what moves me, then what I paint will be my truth. And maybe that truth will resonate with others. Maybe it won't. That is the risk I must take, and now is the time to take it.