August 21, 2021 -- Chore Day and the Impossibilty of Art

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Today’s chores, vacuuming and laundry, went smoothly. Every week I do the same chores and consistently get a sense of accomplishment from them that I rarely get from my art. When the house is vacuumed, it’s vacuumed. When the laundry is done, done. Art — my art a least — is never finished. Even though I pronounce it to be “finished”. I can always find something unfinished or mal-finished about it. My obstreperous art and its frustrations help me to be grateful for completing simple, manual tasks. Art is an unrelenting task master. The way things are going, I don’t expect to ever be able so say, “That is a perfect drawing.” Then again, one of the things I love about Art is that it will always be challenging, a mountain of unlimited height, always there, always alluring, always tempting, always elusive. That’s just the thing I’ve been looking for.

The Day Job Intrudes on My Inch a Day Schedule

The time flew by today. When I looked up from my work, it was 6 PM…no time to move even an inch forward on my children’s picture book. I had planned to complete yesterday’s gouache painting of a Steller’s Jay, but that didn’t happen.

Time crunches happen when my day job starts a new project. and I’m responsible for getting all of the people connected and engaged. I like my day job for many reasons, and I’m grateful that I have it. My concern is that my future is in the hands of other people. There are signs that what I’m doing, and what I’m good at, may be going out of fashion. When I got into my career the Old Timers told me that everything I know on any give day will be obsolete in three years. . They were right.

But Art doesn’t go out of fashion. That’s the direction I’m going.