Personal Revolutions

As an artist, that mostly works for themselves, the pull to constantly be productive is strong. Always be in the studio, always be putting new work out, always be busy...and since March I've not done much in the way of all that. Granted, my quarantine time was filled with actual medical quarantines, Covid19 took me on a whirlwind trip to the hospital, falling down stairs had me laid up and so did pneumonia and the virus that changed the world. Not to mention death of two family members and the stress and worry and grieving that accompany that AND my very first shut-the-world-down pandemic and the depression and what the fokness that accompanies THAT.

So nope, wasn't feeling Bob Rossy. Happy little trees and aquamarine blue and thin liner brushes were not on my mind at all.
A few people tugged on my sleeve for art orders in all that and I'm almost done with those but for the most part I've been enjoying a break from serving others or even painting for myself. Truth be known-I had seriously burned out and was resenting painting anything.
Try doing it for about ten years non stop to make ends just meet and you'll understand. I guess I needed a vacation and I guess what I got was an illness vacation of death and horribleness. I didn't bring souvenirs back, sorry!
I did bring back a resolve to not waste time, my gifts or talent.
I had a personal revolution of staring my mortality in the face. Of seeing how a virus can steal your time, life, family and friends. Your sense of normalcy is changed and nothing gets put on the calendar.
So I sat with all that was happening, absorbed it, thought about it and did not paint. It was not my time. Sometimes it's just time to observe and feel and be. So that is what I'm doing. Slowly the art is coming back into my heart as I keep practicing "just being". Slowly the pandemic fear is giving way to a reclamation of my life.
In all that- the race revolution is in full swing and the world is really in upset mode, rightfully so. It was long past time for a change. So as I have to look at the virus as causing ultimately good changes in my life so we must also look at the sad death of George Floyd as a catalyst gift for bringing about change.
All these things can bring about little personal revolutions if you can find the gift in the struggle and darkness.
And artists...it's totally ok to not produce and just be a human in the world feeling human things. This might even lead you to produce on a deeper level instead of just autopilot painting like we've been conditioned to do.
Food for thought...