Two posts in one day?

When I was in highschool I entered a competition at our local art museum. Actually our teacher was supposed to chose one student to represent out school. She chose me. What I remember from the event is we were instructed to find a piece of art, draw it, and write a short essay on what the piece meant to us. We had a few hours to complete the task. I chose a Mesoamerican god sculpture that kind of cracked me up. I drew him with dollar bills in his clenched fists and wrote about how he was the god of greed.

We (all the students) then ate a brown bag lunch while we waited for the panel to judge us.

I didn’t win anything that afternoon, but was given an interesting and lengthy written critique. The judge liked my drawing and rendering skills, but was actually taken with the essay. She offered that perhaps I should go into writing.

I laughed ruefully, as I had heard that before, and promptly put her advice out of my mind. Writing was easy. Art is hard.

As readers of this blog may notice, I resist the urge to blog verbally. I cringe when given papers to write at school. I can barely squeak out thank you notes after given gifts and am notorious for being delinquent on leaving feedback.

Writing takes up valuable time that could be better spent on art.

I wonder sometimes if I was/am ignoring my actual talent and choosing instead the thing I fight with, agonize over and obsess about.

Art hard.

But when it works, nothing gives me greater pleasure.