As an
artist, I believe that my capacity to persevere is certainly one of the
strongest. I am a border-line obsessive advocate for finishing what you start. It is with complete
honesty that I say I cannot recall one occasion throughout my life where I
completely abandoned an art project. If things don’t seem to be panning out the
way I originally planned, I always either continue pushing in that direction in
hopes of working out the kinks or find a way to use what I have already made to
create something new and unexpected. Waste not; want not. I may not always be 100 percent satisfied with the end result, but I can at least sleep
in peace knowing that I saw the thing through to the end and gave it my best
effort the whole way there. The creative process often begins on a whim, and
the path taken from there is full of uncertain forks, twists, and intimidating
inclines. However, I find the journey to be more of an adventure than a
struggle. Challenges excite me. I view every mistake (both in the art realm and
in everyday life) to be a little golden nugget of wisdom because it allows for a valuable
lesson to be learned. If we are attentive and perseverant enough to take that
new knowledge and run with it, we travel ever closer to the asymptotic goal of
perfection. Perseverance permeates all
aspects of my life, and my artwork serves as a valid, tangible example.
As for
my weakness, I do not feel that my artwork encompasses a wide diversity of
disciplines whatsoever. I paint, I draw, I combine the two, and occasionally I
make wire wrap jewelry and sculpture. I have very little experience beyond
these media, which is dangerous ground for a future art teacher to traverse.
Much less do I make efforts to incorporate ideas from other academic subject
areas, such as history, science, or math, even though art is an umbrella for
any idea under the sun and could easily accommodate such themes. I do write
poetry and song lyrics, which I suppose would be considered language arts, but
these stay strictly separate from all visual creations. In regards to big
ideas, I tend to cling stubbornly to my comfort zone of philosophy,
spirituality and exploration of the self. Both in school and at home I almost
always have the freedom to choose my own subject matter to one degree or
another. I am passionately interested in my preferred big ideas, so it’s usually
fairly easy to start what I finish. I may very well owe my perseverant nature
to the fact that I am weak in regards to diversity of content. I’m afraid to
dive into the unknown for fear of disinterest, detachment and incompletion.
Hmmmm…. To owe a strength to a weakness…. I might just be feeling the breath of
a juicy lesson on the back of my neck here.
