Quotes to live by

“The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.” – Ivy Baker Priest

I found this quote shortly after I started throwing around the idea of creating a website and blogging about my newest artwork. It seemed fitting considering the past year and how I decided to start creating new work and even try to sell some. As an artist your life should be your inspiration but at the same time that life can get in the way.

Rewind to a year ago and you’ll find me working my typical Monday – Friday, 8-5 job. Having recently purchased my first home my afternoons and weekends were filled with cleaning, painting, decorating and trying to figure out the basics of lawn care. :/ I learned the only green thumb I’ll ever have is one I’ve accidentally painted. I led a normal life for a late twenty-year-old, in my opinion. 

Needless to say, art was on the back-burner. Who would have time to create artwork when tasked with everyday cleaning, painting, ripping out a moldy bathroom, trying to install a French drain in the backyard? Well, looking back now… the ‘who would have time’ should have been ‘I could have made time’. Doing artwork is my meditation and during all of those tasks I needed to take the time to relax. (A shameless tag, check out my bio page at www.wix.com/beccacreative/homepage for more on my ‘meditation’.)

Skip to 9 months ago and all hell had broken loose in my life. Up seemed like down, left was usually right. If I had read the quote above back then… well let’s just say you would have either found me laughing hysterically or found me curled up under my desk bawling my eyes out in the fetal position. What can I say, I’m a woman and in stressful situations my emotions run amuck.

“The world is round and the place which may seem like the end” was definitely feeling like just that. The End. That’s where the quote stops. Period. The rest of my life I would be stuck in that one spot. What happened, you may ask? For the purpose of this blog, the Who, What, When, Where and Why don’t really matter anymore. The more precise question should be ‘What was destroyed?’ and the answer…. almost my entire art portfolio. I had the majority of my work literally ripped to pieces. 

So where do you go from there? Do you recreate them? Nope, we all know there’s no way to exactly recreate a piece of work and knowing myself all too well I’d always look at the new piece and wish I had the original. Do you throw the ruined pieces out? Nope, too painful to even think about! They’re still sitting in the back of my guestroom closet. I can’t even keep it out in the open. My stomach lurches every time I catch a glimpse of the portfolio and think about my poor, helpless art sitting inside of it. All the pride, the hours, the money, the aches and pains from sitting so long to complete them, Gone! So, what do you do? Well, if you’re lucky enough like me, you have a few amazing people in your life who pick you up… from under the desk, wipe your tears away and inspire you to create more. 

I’ve always told myself everything in life happens for a reason. Ivy Baker Priest's quote fits right in with my philosophy. And while I’d rather my portfolio had not been ruined, it was a kick in the butt to get my creative juices flowing again and start rebuilding my portfolio. So the place I’m in now that once seemed like the end is “only the beginning” ….