Why Not?

There's a part of me that still says I'm not ready! I don't know what I'm doing!

And it's true - I have no idea what I'm doing. I've painted some stuff I'm really proud of and I want to share it. I hope other people see it and like it and want to buy it. I don't think I'm at my creative best yet or that I know the best techniques or that I've honed my specific style. I have no idea how to run an art business or juggle that with my full time job or my family, let alone how to get my art out there.

But I do know the only way I'll ever get the answers is to do it.

I used to think my life was just kind of what was handed to me - I'd truly watch other people make these big, very personal and also sort of basic life decisions like where to live or choosing a job, and think that I didn't get to do that. Even in high school, I knew we had art classes I could take (obviously), I knew I could find other art classes outside of the school, but I literally thought, oh that's for them, not for me. I don't get to do that. I just lived that way - other people get to create the lives they want, that's there lot in life, this is mine.

I was a full-grown adult, kids and a mortgage, in my 30s before I started to believe that I could also choose what my life looks like and how it feels and what it is. And it really wasn't until recently that I believed I could actually choose art.

There was a small shift in the way I looked at artwork and other artists, I started to look at it and in the same way I'd ask a friend or my kids, "If that person can make and share art, why can't you?" It wasn't a nasty or critical thought about them or their work -- sometimes it was stunning work in galleries far different than I could ever make, sometimes it was a small artist on instagram or at a market. But I was really asking myself, what makes them different from me?

And at the end of the day the answer was nothing.

xx