Make Your Art Mean Something. To You.

Your art should mean something. To You.

If you're a professional maker your art has to mean something to the client and the consumer. That takes a whole different thinking.

But if you're not --- then you're free. Free to do things for you since it only has to mean something to you. I don't mean 'only' as in you're not important. I mean 'only' as in it narrows who you have to make happy with what you create. No one gets to say whether it 'works' or doesn't. No one else gets a vote. You are free to enjoy it in your own way on your own terms.

We usually are happier with our art when it has meaning attached to it. When it has a message (even if hidden from others) that resonates with one's self. It also drives us a little more in the messy creative process to push through. Here's a case in point.

Quote Drawing Speed Video

Leila passed away at the same time Joseph was born. Then Sky passed away a little over a year later. They wanted us to raise Joseph "if anything happens to us." I brushed off the comment when they said it. Why would we even need to know? Until we did need to know. So at 50 we started raising Joseph full time. And even though I'd been a stay-at-home mom of 8 for 28 years, raising a child who's parents have died, one from complications of his birth, was going to be not only new to us but a potentially painful struggle for him in later years. So, I try to think of things that will reinforce his worth, his place and his life. To get across that he was wanted from before day one. He will struggle. We all do. But I want some of what I make to dust little bits of love over him. So he'll remember.

​I don't know if it will mean anything to him, I hope it does. But even if it doesn't I made art that means something. To me.