Ok, I’ll admit it, I’m stuck.

This #30edits abstract project I was so excited about is kicking my butt. I haven’t created a new one in almost a week, and I’m not really motivated to get back into it. Here’s the last…

So what is it that is leaving me flat about the whole thing?

Sure, it’s fun. It’s been good to see where each individual piece goes. But it feels like there is no purpose, no cohesiveness to the whole group of work. They are a series of individual pieces that don’t really relate to each other. And so far, they are not pushing me to much out of my comfort zone.

I’ve realized a few things lately, as I’ve worked through this project… 

Since I’ve sat with my art for several weekends at art fairs, I’ve realized that there is something those winter trees give me, besides inspiration. They give me a cohesiveness to my work which is otherwise very disparate in style. Even in my last #30edits project, which resulted in vastly different pieces, they related to each other since they started with the same photograph. That creates a connection between the work at least in my own mind. A connection I can talk about with others. These abstracts have no relation to each other. For some reason that bugs me.

Maybe that bugs me because it feels that they have no story on their own. The only story in them is the processing itself, the project itself. Even though what I love about abstract art is the emotion of it, it doesn’t feel that there is an emotional driving force in the creation of them. They are interesting, but when they are done, they aren’t conveying something more to me, something inside of me, in the way my art does usually. I decided I don’t want to share the starting photograph of these, because it ruins the magic of the abstract. But maybe it also ruins the magic of creation in a way, that there is no clear tie to the starting photograph, which is usually so important to my process. You can’t tell that it started as this one thing and was transformed into something new but related.

So I’m trying to decide… Do I continue the #30edits Abstract project or do I stop? Will I find inspiration if I push through this stuck place? Or have I learned my lesson and I should focus on the thing that has given me some inspiration lately… The figure?

Trying to decide. And in the meantime, I’m barely creating. 

That’s probably answer enough, isn’t it? Funny how it took writing a blog post for me to figure it out. 

Time to follow my inspiration. #30edits Abstract is on hold, indefinitely.