The Artist and Self-Doubt

One has to be constantly on guard for the thoughts of self-doubt.  It’s the artist’s bane.  Artists seem always on the lookout for the myriad of excuses made so as to be absent from the studio. I used to tell this to my students. I tell it to myself every day.

Since we moved to Delaware and I left my huge free-standing studio behind, I focused my creative impulses designing and working in the garden in warm weather, and art in the wintertime studio.  It’s harder for me to not step into my studio now as it is on the way to the bedroom and I see some finished/unfinished pieces on the wall every day.  Still, the focus comes hard.  The upside of an in-house studio is how, once one relents, steps in and starts to maneuver materials, the focus usually comes, creativity is given free reign, and time flies by.  Oregon Native American artist speaks of this dilemma in a book published by Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene, 2015; Rick Bartow, Things You Know But Cannot Explain.

Buck, Rick Bartow 2015

After 40 years of artistic exploration interspersed with illness, Barlow doesn’t wait for the muse.  “‘That’s a fallacy, a myth, a bad plan,’ he explains.  Rather than hope for inspiration or expect enlightenment to suddenly strike, for Bartow it’s all about working, getting in the studio and making marks, day in and day out.  ‘I’m an old man.  I know what an old man knows,’ he shares.  ‘But I am still looking for solutions.  It’s the process of creating that is important.’”

Crow Hop IV; 2014

Man Acting Like Dog; 2009

“Bartow’s work is a testimony to art’s capacity for dialogue, story-telling and record-keeping.   It facilitates a connection between the past and the present as well as between the physical and spiritual worlds.  In doing so, his work invites viewers into the conversation.” (Jill Hartz, Danielle Knapp, 2015) The book’s thematic guide: Gesture, Self, Dialogue, Tradition, Transformation is filled to overflowing with his motivations as he participates in the creative process.  Thank you Rick Bartow.