Most artists love their studios. Our art supplies live there. Our finished work lives there. Our work in progress lives there, but I realized this morning that I never spend time in my art studio.
I visit it maybe twice a week, when I am loading up for a show and when I am unloading from that show.
Part of it is a lack of organization. Everything does not have a home, but so much of that is because so much truly doesn't belong there. So much in that space isn't who I am.
I keep buying art supplies for an artist that I am not. Some part of me thinks that I need to create art that is different from what I do because some part of me believes that what I do is never good enough. I need to create something different. I need to create something that doesn't look like me.
I've spent a lot of time in self healing and working toward self acceptance but I still find these moments when I realize that even though I've come so far, I still have so far to go.
I have canvases. I have watercolor pencils and watercolors; acrylic paints, piles of papers and brushes that I keep compulsively buying because I feel like if I could be that different kind of artist, maybe I would be worthy of self love.
As soon as I processed what I've been doing, I realized that I need to stop. I am boxing up all the art supplies that I've purchased for someone who isn't me and who I don't need to become. I will be giving all of them to a deserving new home where they will be appreciated and loved. I don't need them living in my studio and preventing me from being in that space.
The whole place needs an overhaul and a reorganization but claiming that space back is a huge first step.
I don't need to be someone different to be worthy of love. I've always been worthy of love, just sometimes, I forget.
My Oracle card of the week is the Red Rose, which means "I love you," in the Victorian language of flowers, and I do. I love you, Loveday. I just need to tell you a little more often and with a little more appreciation for the person you're becoming.
And, always, we circle back to that place that my soul truly belongs: New Orleans. At times, it seems like all we can see are the issues that plague the city: no garbage pick up, no power, endless hurricanes, rising electricity costs, insane water prices, unaffordable housing, but somehow we keep coming back. We can't leave. New Orleans infests our souls like a beautiful dream that we don't want to wake up from even when the nightmare edges into our subconscious. We love you, New Orleans, and problems or no, I can't quit you. Your magic engulfs me and enchants me so.
