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I saw an article on TV this week about Alzheimer patients that turned to visual art, in this case painting, as their condition caused them to lose more and more of their memory.  This was not therapy necessarily, but a desire to paint, almost an obsession.  I noticed that the more they painted the better their paintings became.

It didn't modify their condition,  the Alzheimer's would still continue to progress .  But I had to think that it was a bit of a comfort to the friends and families that saw their loved ones continue to produce something creative and new.  

The why isn't important I don't think.  We would have to ask ourselves why we, as artists, create.  Usually, if you asked this question, the answer would be because we have to.  So I take this away from what I saw;  the more you do something, hopefully, the better you will do that thing.  For some of us art is not just a passion but an obsession that keeps us balanced, happy and productive.  And, for me, it is my connection to a community of other creative people and a world that continues to give back to me and open new doors. 

It seems I rush through my morning routine so I can go to my studio and work.  I check my calendar every Sunday night to see how many days that week I will be able to spend at the easel.  But what about the bills that need to be paid, the marketing details that need to be tended to, the paintings that need to be delivered and the schmoosing with the galleries.  All of this is part of the job and just as important.  And how does a person deal with the guilt of then not being in the studio?  Even doing this blog is taking time away from what I really, really want to do, and that is to create art.  Oh the pain of it all.

Then I think of when I was in the corporate world.  My desk was piled up with files, my messages were piled up in the corner of my desk pad.  I got angry because the meetings I had to attend took so long and there was so much to do and not enough time.  I wanted my desk cleaned off before I went on vacation.  Ha Ha  That wasn't going to happen.

So has anything changed.  YES!  Now I'm doing what I always wanted to do.  In college sitting in a business class trying to stay awake, I wished I was in a design class.  As I sat at a typewriter working my way up to 65 or 70 words a minute, I wished I was in a drawing class.  And although I had jobs that I liked, working with people that became good friends, meeting a man that I later married, there was still that unfilled place in my heart.  I wanted to create art.  As I stood in my beautiful office on the 25th floor looking out at Puget Sound and the Olympic mountains and knowing that I was a success, I knew that something was missing.  So I went back to school and this time took design, drawing, art history and painting classes.

So anytime I think how burdened I am with "stuff", I look around and know how lucky I am that the things I have to do are the things I choose to do.  I love lugging paintings around, meeting new people, learning how to do some new marketing thing.  I'm one of the lucky ones.  I'm living my dream, I've found my bliss.  I've learned, I can pay these bills after dinner, but right now my paint is drying and I just thought of how I can solve this color problem.