Why blog?...

I haven't blogged for a while (really... you hadn't noticed?...) and was thinking last night about why/why not and what was the point of blogging

I don't remember why I stopped - wow my last post was November last year?!! - perhaps it was Christmas and I got wrapped up in life and friends, perhaps it was the creative "rut" that I stumbled into, I'm not exaclty sure. What I did realise was that blogging, even off topic, kept my eyes open and my mind active. What do I mean?...

I mean that that the creative "rut" that I fell into, swallowed me up and stopped me seeing and thinking creatively and by dropping off the face of blogger, that I had nothing pushing me. Re-reading that, it sounds very negative, but what I mean is that by posting on my blog daily (or almost daily) I look for things to write and doing that I look at what's around me, what's happening in my life and things that I've seen, read or heard and make note of this. In this way I find that I'm more creative, whether it be transferred to art or not.

Last weeken I submitted some peices for a group exhibition and the buzz I got from seeing people's reactions to my work when I picked my pieces up from the framers and at the gallery reminded me why I love what I do.

I AM good at it!!

Now back to the blogging... I struggled on creating these pieces. Initially I had lots of ideas, but as the date loomed closer I had nothing to show. I started something and became disheartened because it wasn't shapping up the way I had envisioned it... I tried something else and it didn't work... The number of times I complained "what's the point - I'm no good at this?" was just not funny. Obviously, eventually, I worked through this and ended up with 3 pieces that I am very pleased with.

Spurred on by the success of completed some work and the glow that I was feeling from the great feedback that I received I got in and started sorting out my studio and it's this that started me thinking. I have a box of pages and pictures and 'what-not' that I've collected with the intention of using them for 'something'. I stick these random images and ideas into a book that I can peruse when I need inspiration. I haven't added anything to my 'inspiration books' for quite some time and was sorting through this last night and the ideas were racing through my head.

I have lots of books on journals and journalling and have not yet succeeded at maintaining a journal. I'd love to keep an art journal an pour over the images of others journals with ideas that one day I WILL do this. Then I realised that my blog is a journal, and I that I HAVE maintained a journal - I'd just been very very slack with my journal this year (which is almost over!). I blog about ideas, thoughts and funny things I see. I blog about my art and I blog about my life. Blogging is my record. I do lots of 'thinking out loud' on my blog and find that in doing so ideas can evolve. I don't blog for anybody else. I blog for me. If others read my blog and even see fit to respond then that just adds another realm to my journal - it talks back!

Sooo what now? I BLOG!!!

I have made a September resolution, to get back into blogging and subsequently back into creativity! I won't vow to do it daily - that's just setting myself up to fail - but I will make a committment to blog more often in order to help me 'see more' of the world around me.

OK - That's enough deep and meaningfuls.