I'm living in two worlds these days. At home, the world is sticky with creative juice. Breathe deep, run your finger across a tabletop, taste it, inhale it, it's inescapable, a tune you can't get out of your head, a taste on the tip of your tongue, colors that are deeper, sunsets that catch fire into Peter Maxx/Maxfield Parrish impossibilities.
It's a world where every building should look like the Dali Museum.
At work, all colors fade to shades of gray and black, with frantic crosshatching of detail.
It's work that needs doing, detail that matters, yet somehow the amount of angst that goes into its production seems so out of scale, so truly ridiculous, that a part of me is always sitting back in wonderment, transfixed by the hyperventilating victims of high blood pressure all around me.
I'm torn between the two worlds. The childish, desperate- to -please -and- excel perfectionist wants to be the best damned hamster on the wheel.
The inner rebel wants her solitude and freedom to express herself in whatever way she chooses in her own little world - paint vines on the doors, write fairy tales, take pictures of the world's most minute details.
Circumstance requires income; I continually remind myself to be grateful that my black and white job pays the bills with dollars to spare.
But I so miss the color - and wish I had more energy to spare for those precious hours when that's my world.
4 comments:
I hear you, I really hear you.
And I do love Maxfield Parrish. We have one of his prints in the bedroom. Your blog is so beautiful, your aesthetic is glorious. At least you get to unleash that creativity of yours here!
Thank you so much, Ruth. But doesn't it feel like a half hour or so on the Internet to be creative while the rest of your life is black and white is just a wrong wrong wrong mix? It should be the other way around!
And then I wonder if maybe I'm just being a brat.
I suppose the answer is to bring the color to the black and white world - but that makes them so anxious.
It's a fascinating dilemma, really.
Susan, Thank you for this post. I am the author of The Artist Within, A Guide to Becoming Creatively Fit. It is about "working out" the right brain muscle so that we can be WHOLE brain! I hope some day to live in a world where your creativity is also celebrated at work! Business these days needs to be more creative than ever and it is not going to stop. creativelyfit.com is where you could learn more--would love to connect. (I do corporate creativity workshops--maybe we could slap some color into your work!) Cheers! Whitney
Wear color. Wear art. Decorate your office. Sing. And keep writing here because your posts are always creative.
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