I came across a great blog by Eric Maisel this week, and one I find myself guilty of: Where will you find the time to paint?

Argh!

Whenever someone asks me how I do all that I, I always reply with, “Choices.” That’s exactly what it is. And exactly what that blog post points to but never actually hits that nail on the head. He asks, “Does your art truly matter to you?” and then alludes that if it does (and it might not), that you need to “make time” for you will never “find time.” All true. However, there is a step missing.

If your art matters to you, is it a priority? It is a choice you have to make.

Here’s a reality: you can either make art, or you can agonize about not making it.

Do or do not, there is no try.

See, there are some times that making art wouldn’t be a priority. Health might be an example. If you really need to lose weight (okay, and we’re not talking about a little bit of weight here, I’m talking about significant weight), then your health comes first. You can’t make art if you’re dead. If this is the case, health has to be the priority. But is there something else you can cut out that isn’t a priority, like sitting on the couch for 2 hours watching TV? TV, news, etc., not a priority. I feel like I’m digressing.

Quit watching those painting videos and go paint.

Sometimes other things in life do need to take priority. I find that during these times, I don’t agonize about not painting. It’s not even on my radar. Same with writing.

But when I do start wishing I “had more time” to write or paint, then that should be a clear flag to me that I am making other things a priority when maybe they shouldn’t be. But I have to make the choice to go sit down at my desk or at my easel. I have to make doing the work important by my own choice.

As he says in the blog, you have to motivate yourself to crawl through your resistance. I am guilty of not doing that lately.

In a recent class I was taking, the instructor spoke about blocking out time on your calendar for things that need to be done. For some reason, I have always found this very discouraging. My artistic child hates to be told to do things at a certain time. But I am more than my artistic child. I am the owner of four businesses now. I have a full time job. I need to be responsible. So here I am crawling around in my own head about how to make more time to work on one of those businesses that my artistic child is the ruler of – the business where it my job to create value from my thoughts and ideas and feed them into my other businesses.

Now, not everyone desires to make money from their art. Some just want to do it. To me, my creativity doesn’t feel complete until it is released into the world for a viewer to see and react. But if you are doing it for the pure joy and you can’t make the time to do it, then something else is bringing you joy. Release the art and let it influence you as the muse sees fit. My photography is like that.

Eric Maisel’s blog made me realize that I haven’t been very good in taking my own words of advice about how far you can go in just doing a task for 15 minutes a day. And that is what has gotten under my skin. He’s right and I know it. There has been no try, only do not.

Time to sit down and rethink my priorities I guess. No, I know that I can’t give up my painting. I know that I only feel complete when I’m doing it all. So I guess I must make time. My artistic child must learn to control her playtime when it is scheduled. Then I have to have the priorities strong enough to not want to go off and do something else that might need to be done.

The frustration, the resistance, the hatred of staying firm to one’s decisions is real.

Now, back to losing weight. I’ve been sitting for far too long in this block of time I’m made to write my blogs for this week. I must now turn to my Cubii Jr. and get a few more steps in.