Settling in

One of my (million) worries when considering adoption was that I wouldn’t feel creative anymore. Not that it was one of the biggest concerns, but it was always there in the back of my mind. There was about an 8 week break, when we were all trying to find our footing as a family, that I didn’t feel like painting or have the energy to do anything but try to get to know my children & keep some semblance of order in the house.

But yes, there was an initial concern over what it might feel like to have no desire to create anything. It happened once before and lasted for about a decade- I was honestly afraid it would happen again. Oddly, quite the opposite happened. I have never had so many creative ideas in my life. It’s really a good thing that we turned the art studio into a room for one of the boys, because if I were painting in any sort of dedicated space, the children might find me buried under a pile of half-finished canvases. As it is, I have to limit myself to what will fit on my art table. This is probably a good thing.

One of the things that have helped foster my continued creativity has been the willingness to change the way the art-making actually happens. I do still paint large canvases, especially for commissions, but more often work on several smaller canvases when I am painting out of my head. It seems more realistic to paint in smaller blocks of time, & I can’t accomplish much on a large canvas in half an hour yet I see real progress on a smaller canvas in the same timeframe.

These are 4x4 and 5x7 canvases, and this process took about an hour. Most of them have been completed since, but not yet photographed and edited for prints.