Getting My Hands Dirty Again
At an early age I determined that I simply sucked at painting. Admittedly, I came to this conclusion without giving myself much of a chance. There’s also the added problem of me being younger and less enlightened in general. Despite that, I was quick to tell people that I couldn’t do it up until pretty recently. Then after some thought I realized that maybe I could do it. My artistic foundation is in dry media (with the exception of some ink and marker application) and digital art.
I guess the real kick-off for this train of though came in a recent job interview. The interviewer asked me a question that stumped me. When asked what involvement I had in the local art community I froze up. After a brief awkward silence I answered quite plainly, “Nothing, really.” This brought on the jarring realization that I wanted to be involved. I never stopped wanting it, I just converted to mostly digital art and had no body of traditional work to put in shows anymore. My work has basically been disappearing into the sea of the internet for years now. I want work that can be hung on walls in the real world in places where art is the focus. There’s no intimacy on DeviantArt and the like. I want to feel like I have a tangible presence in the art world again. A recent trip to the local monthly Artwalk event really lit a fire under me. I hadn’t been to this event for a shamefully long while and hadn’t seen how much it had grown. Grown not just in volume of content, but in diversity. There was so much great works from all facets of the art world. There’s no reason my stuff couldn’t be amongst it.
So after some research I determined that acrylic paint is the right choice for me. I picked up a couple of canvases that were crazy cheap on sale. I also have an easel that I found at my Great Aunt Dorothy’s house after she passed last year. Putting that to use will give me a good feeling too. It’ll be like I’m carrying on it’s use for her. She’d prefer that to letting it collect dust I’m sure.
It’s just going to feel nice to get my hands dirty again. That’s one thing that you can only get with traditional art and it’s one of my favorite aspects of it. I wear the mess off colors all over my hands like a badge.
