A year ago I was working on my exit strategy. Cleaning up this mess of a (productive) studio and sorting through all my crap so we could move to a new blank slate in a new (old) city.
Today I couldn't help but compare recent past as a working artist in the South and my current situation working in the arts in the Northeast. I guess I am still a working artist, I do still make art but my output now isn't as large as it was. And it has changed.
Atlanta was a fine place for me to come to my skills and confidence as a painter, a place to teach, live, love and eat well. Fine people, fine music.
Today I fell asleep reading in the backyard. Yesterday we played with the baby niece. I walk around this city with a comfort it took me many years to find in the South.
I've noticed that the art I make here is...different. I'm still getting my sea-legs for sure, I don't exactly have a full-on studio set-up, the clay obsession is really fun and I have less to prove and more to...say? I don't know. Something is different about the voice I use here and the tone I had a year ago. I'll share more I guess when I figure it out. Maybe when the recent paintings and drawings are up in Atlanta will I be able to articulate it. Or maybe the articulation isn't as important as regaining the confidence and the disipline with which I worked before I left. And that may simply take time and more work.
Never easy to assess where you are or where you've been, but I do know that where I'm going is to bed. Peace and take care,
Rachael
