Weekly Wings - Visual #1

It's ok if you want to laugh and point. I thought I wouldn't post this, but then I thought again. I've listened to/read a lot of artists and writers in my day who have said that what we ALL need in the art community is to see much MUCH more of the PROCESS of art, not only finished pieces all the time. Even the artists we love best and admire most started somewhere, and sucked at some point, and probably still do really BAD work that remains valid in how instructive it is, in the way it moves them from point A to point B, in what it reveals to them about their concept/vision for a piece.

So: here is my first take at a visual piece for this week's Wings 4 You exercise. This is how I approach any piece that's going to end up living OUTSIDE of my journal: a sketch, a list of some kind to remind me of the 'must have' elements, and the date. When you look at it, you may think, 'Holy crap, that woman cannot draw!' ... but if you read my Weekly Wings post, I'll bet you see a little more deeply than my drawing skills, right? Anyway, what YOU see when you look at a draft of mine is irrelevant to me except to share this whole idea that our work DOES NOT START OUT ALREADY PERFECT!!! When I look at this, everything is there, rushing forward from inside me. When I look at this, I know exactly what needs to stay, what needs to go, and what needs to change when I move on to Draft #2. There's the beauty of it -- no, I can't draw, but I can draw enough to express my idea, then move ahead with it.

I'm really just trying to say we have a choice to hide our "suckage", our drafts, our really early efforts, and only let people see us at our best -- or we can let people IN, show them the process, show them how unformed & fledgling it really started out as, how it evolved, how it became the finished 'something'.

Art is NOT about the finished something -- not my art, anyway. It's all about the process. It may be that I just end up not having enough time to take that comical first draft drawing up there and move it all the way through to where my brain and heart say, 'Ok, stop! Done!' But I still have it ALL because I have this funky scratch-paper draft!

So words like 'bad' and 'suck' and 'best' and 'perfect' -- what do they mean? I had to decide, me for me ... what do YOU think?