Do We Paint for Process or Product?

This question haunts me today.  I started reading the book "Life, Paint, and Passion:  Reclaiming the Magic of Spontaneous Expression" (by Michele Cassou and Stewart Cubley) today.  I'm also reading "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron.  "The Artist's Way" deals with unblocking one's creativity--a 12 week recovery program to reclaim your creative self.  Both books are fantastic.  In fact, Julia's book made me start wondering yet again if I'd like to go to art school and maybe be an art professor.  But "Life, Paint, and Passion" warns of basing too much emphasis on what others and even oneself think of one's work.  The reader is encouraged to paint spontaneously and intuitively, with no adherence to technique.  If blue feels right, you paint it.  Everyone knows how to paint anything, and if they don't, they invent it, just as children do.  This idea deeply resonates with a wild, bohemian aspect of myself.  To not be tied to society or people or what anyone thinks sounds incredible yet maybe impossible.  And when I was doing art for product rather than for joy of the process, I did get discouraged and burnt out.  

Yet in "The Artist's Way," Julia warns about doing too much too soon, as that is a surefire way to burn yourself out (lesson acknowledged!).  

I wonder if, as with many things in life, the middle road is the most balanced way.  On the one hand, I agree with "Life, Paint, and Passion" that if you've lost the ability to create without borders what is deeply meaningful to you, you've lost everything.  Maybe it isn't really even art

if it doesn't mean something to the artist (what do you think?).  But I don't think it's necessary to completely throw out technique.  Different techniques can only add to the ways you can express yourself through painting.  Sometimes you may feel like painting a raw emotion simply for the pleasure of the process of painting.  But sometimes you also want to accurately document the sweet line of your lover's chin against the moon or the way a tree branch melts into the sky.  

What do you think?  This raises so many questions in my mind.  It would be fascinating to hear what you have to say.  Does one paint for process or product?  

Tonight I painted and it was lovely.  Feeling the brush strokes is enough.  During a painting, I am always anxious that it will turn out horrible.  But when I finish them, I am almost always beyond delighted.  Each and every one of them is a part of me, and something deep is satisfied.  

Perhaps tomorrow I'll post pics of my painting and of a drawing I created of a potential tattoo!

Unglued

Do you ever get the overwhelming urge to change everything about yourself?  To move to Paris and become a photojournalist for a humanitarian newspaper.  Or go to India and complete a year long hobo/spiritual journey around the world.  

To go anywhere but here, a college student dressed in red, doing mindless homework she cares nothing about, dreaming up far-fetched schemes; perhaps to escape the mundane.  Because she's not happy when she's not dreaming.  And she wonders if she'll ever overcome the anxiety that makes her imagination come unglued from her body and float far, far away.  

And her only real wish for Christmas is for a life she doesn't want to change.

I wonder if this isn't what we all desperately wish for?

Funny story--apparently I'm George W. Bush's 9th cousin!  Not sure how to handle that information.  : p  I think I'd prefer to be Obama's 9th cousin.

What should I be when I grow up?

Okay, please excuse my freak-out rant.  

I feel really overwhelmed.  I feel like I need to decide today.  A lot of grad school deadlines are only 2 weeks away, and I'm at the edge of the acceptable time to ask professors to write letters of recommendation.  And I'm not sure what I want to apply for grad school in, if I should get a masters or just take leveling classes before a doctorate, when to apply, aaaaagh!  My head feels like it's about to explode!!!!  Do I do leveling courses first and then apply a year later?  And if I have to apply next fall, will I even have enough leveling classes and research experience to get accepted to the programs I really want to be in?  I also keep vacillating between things I'd like to do.  For instance, I came downstairs to research grad school for clinical psychology, but then I started thinking about Ph.D.s in anthropology, but I feel so unsure about whether I'd actually like those jobs because I've never experienced them.  And will I get to experience them before it's too late?  Like with Deaf Ed, I never worked with Deaf kids til my SENIOR YEAR, and was practically finished with the program before I realized I didn't want to do it anymore.  AAAAGH!

Edit:  Phew, I'm feeling much better now.  Still stressed a bit, but my parents and I talked and decided it would probably be the best plan to take leveling classes next fall and see what I like the best.  Then I can have more time to prepare, and not feel like I'm launching into this vast unknown.  But this time of life can be so exciting and so stressful.  I hope I can downplay the stress and mostly just enjoy uncertainties more than worry over them.

Newest career idea:  clinical psychology.  The whole Ph.D. thing is a bit daunting, but it sounds like a really neat career from what I've read and been told (thanks, Kelly!).  This is still very much in the thinking process, but we'll see what happens.  I would pick the most competitive area of psychology to be interested in, haha.

Art from:  www.art-mind-soul.com/ 003-Yin-Yang.enlarge.html .

Thanks for all the sweet comments on the last post.  I think I was just having one of those weeks where I felt like the world was a bit harsher than usual.  Sometimes I do expect too much from people, too.  I haven't been the best about calling people lately.  Except sometimes people retreat just to see if anyone notices, maybe that's what I was trying to do.  Sometimes a girl just needs to know that people still love her!  : )

Positive news, and I feel like a little girl saying this, but I'm going to start horseback riding lessons next week!  I'm super excited.  I rode off and on as a kid and then as a young teenager, but after a riding accident, I was spooked.  But lately I find myself looking longingly at photos of horses or at horses I see along the road.  So it's official, yay!  I've even run across an old acquaintance who has offered to let me ride her horses with her to help exercise them.  How fun!  I hope so much that it works out.  The photo above is of an Akhal-Teke, my favorite breed of horse at the moment (although I haven't yet ridden one).  Even though this photo doesn't show it, these horses are known for their particularly brilliantly sheeny coats.  They're also thinner than a lot of horses and rival Arabians in their stamina.  They are so beautiful and delicate.  It's funny, when I was looking through one of my old horse books, the Akhal-Teke just called to me.  It was stunning.  When I looked it up online, I found that the person who runs the national breed website lives out here in the middle of nowhere, just two hours away!  I couldn't believe it!  It almost seems like it was fate or something.  Maybe I'll venture out to their farm sometime.  When I was a girl, I always wanted to own a horse.  I still hope someday I can!  

Sometimes I feel like pulling away because I feel like people don't care as much or put as much in as I do.  I know I don't see everything others do, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.

I want to be a friend who gives people the benefit of the doubt; I would hope to receive the same from a friend, but it's so hard sometimes.

I've been upset about this for so long.