The crooked path

Above: found this photo in a folder in my computer titled "Hiking Adventures." I think it's in a park not too far from where I live. The path symbolism is relevant, ok?

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Merry meet, readers! It's a misty, rainy day outside. Perfect for tea, blogging, and art. And cleaning the bathroom later... blargh.

Almost two weeks since my last post! I have been busy. Last weekend I was off to the island again, with the Fox this time. His grandfather passed away, so we attended the memorial service in Courtenay. The service itself was... interesting... thanks to a certain inappropriate uncle... but I won't talk about that here. It was nice to meet some of the Fox's family, though he's not as close with that side. The drive from Nanaimo to Courtenay was beautiful. Fall colours everywhere in the trees, and the weather was gorgeous. It's so pretty over there! Sigh...

Anyway, so that was fine. I had to take the Saturday off for it. I think I'd better not take any more days off for a while. I'm beginning to worry about money a bit. I suppose I could always ask for another weekly shift at work, but it's so much better having three days off a week. I feel a lot more rested and productive. Speaking of which...

I've been doing a bit of art the past couple days. I did something for an upcoming birthday (it's a secret!), and I also did some ink drawing last night. There's this thing called "Inktober," apparently, in which you do an ink drawing for every day of the month. All the artists I know are participating, so of course I wanted to as well. I know I won't have time to do an ink drawing every day in October, but I can do some! So I did a little drawing last night based on a character in a book series I really like. (The Bartimaeus Trilogy!)

This was important because I actually stayed up until 2am drawing... something I haven't done in a long time. It felt like the muse was back. The feeling that I've been trying to recapture for many months, even years, was with me! It was a very exciting moment for me, as I am in "creative recovery" mode and have been actively trying to get excited about art again.

What's funny is that I still haven't picked up the Artist's Way again, not since before Faerieworlds. So, either it did its thing in the early stages, or this is just the first glimmer of recovery and I should keep making my way through the course.

I'm not expecting miracles right away, of course... I know that the muse is often flighty even at the best of times. However, it was inspiring to be inspired again.

I had the pleasure of visiting with an old friend on Sunday, a fellow artist who I met in graphic design school. After our graduation she went on to take the 2D animation program at the same university. Sometimes I wonder if I might have benefited from that path as well. It probably would have suited me much better than graphic design. But I guess it wasn't my path at the time. I don't think I'll attend more art-related school at this point; I think I just want to do my own stuff now.

That being said, I saw a kind of parallel universe when I visited her lovely little new apartment. She is working at an animation studio downtown, and presumably making the money to pay for her new place by doing that. I am very happy for her, and she deserves it all (she's a wonderful artist and hard worker), but I did kind of wonder what I did wrong, so to speak. I mean, we started off pretty much the same, but now I'm working at a grocery store and she's working as a layout artist. Obviously, the two more years of animation school had something to do with it... and the fact that she has put much more time into her art than I have, to be perfectly honest. I think I could be successful in that field, if I put as much time and energy and passion into it as she has, but I haven't.

And why not, you ask? I don't think it's out of laziness. I'll give myself more credit than that! I just don't really know if I would be happy in that kind of work. By the sounds of it, there is a lot of overtime and staying late at the studio. I did that in university and it made me rather unhealthy. I was eating badly and I didn't have a social life at all. Also, I like to have a variety of hobbies... but if I am always at work, there would be no time for anything else. I'm not sure that's for me. I love art, yes, but I love other parts of life too...

And animation isn't really something I've been particularly drawn too. I love illustration, and spending a lot of time on one piece. That's where my happy zone is. Animation involves a lot of rough work, a lot of sketches and in-betweens and layouts, not a lot of polished, finished stuff that you can hang on a wall. I see myself as more of a traditional artist that way.

What I would like more than being cooped up in an animation studio would be to take my art and sell it at craft fairs in the form of greeting cards, prints, and things like that. Or maybe at local shops. I've talked about this before, but I think that would be more satisfying to me than working on someone else's TV show or movie. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course! But I want my art to be my own, from my own imagination. That's what makes it special to me.

Anyway. That was a lot of rambling about nothing in particular. But I guess the point is that my path is crooked for a reason, and though I might look at other's paths and feel envy because their paths seem smoother or prettier or more admirable, in the end I have to follow my own wherever it might lead, and keep walking towards my own personal meadows. (Sorry, that was cheesy.)

I might be envious of my friend's apartment at first, but thinking about it more, I'm not sure it would be the best thing for me. It's a skyscraper, very modern, in a suburb but still very much an urban area... and my dreams nowadays have more to do with trees and birds and quiet sunrises in the forest than they do with shiny countertops and cityscapes and 24-hour coffee shops a block away. I think I would really enjoy it at first, and then I would start to miss nature more and more. I already need more nature in my life, and I live next to a pretty golf course.

So in a way it comes down to lifestyle. A job in animation or the film industry (the glamorous jobs, the "dream jobs," the ones that artists sometimes are told to strive towards) demands a lot of things that I'm not sure I would be ready to give. They demand most of your time and energy, and they usually demand that you live in the city because that's where all the studios are... and they demand that your creative energy be used for whatever project is on the table at the moment. Which some people thrive on; I just don't think I'm one of those people.

And even as I say all this, there's a part of me that still thinks I'm saying it because I'm a failure, and I'm trying to make myself feel better about not having the drive or the passion to actually pursue a career in the commercial arts. It's a nasty thought that keeps popping up in my head that I'm really just trying to cover up my failures by switching my focus (as I plan to go back to school to train as a medical laboratory assistant). That way, I don't have to admit that I've failed! Or that's what the dark side of my brain says to me.

But actually, I don't think that's true. I think it has actually something to do with societal pressure. I've read a lot of articles that have been popping up lately on the whole subject of "dream careers." This idea of following your passion hasn't really been around that long. It's a new concept in the scheme of things. For most of human history people have worked so that they could support themselves and/or their families, not so they could do what they love and get paid for it. The concept that settling for anything less than your idea of a perfect job means that you are a coward or lazy or unambitious is a dangerous and unhealthy one. There's so much pressure on young people do follow their dreams (which, let's face it, are often in the creative fields, because those are the most fun, the most glamorous, or the jobs that make your parents the proudest) that now we have a lack of tradespeople, because instead of viewing practical careers as valuable and important, society now looks down on them as inferior to jobs such as songwriter, blogger, artist, actor, musician... inferior to jobs that create a following of fans for oneself.

I'm going on and on, I know. It's really rambly now. I should stop.

And I know I've talked about this before, but it comes up again and again in my mind. I do wonder if I'm making the right choices, or if I should have tried harder to pursue my "dreams." But then I wonder if my dreams were really ever my own dreams, or if they were the ones crafted for me in my Career Planning class because I liked to draw.

I guess I don't know what I really want to do in life, eh?

I do have my plan, and I think it feels right... but there's always that doubt. Am I doing what I'm meant to do? No one can answer that, can they? I mean, short of divine communication... (that would be pretty handy right now, actually... good thing there's a pagan group tonight)!

Maybe I can seek the answers in my newfound faith. I hate to call it a faith, because to me that word implies that I believe in everything working out on its own. I don't believe that, really... I believe we are the only ones who can change ourselves and our lives. (And I don't mean to say that it's that simple for everyone. For example, for a person living in poverty in a third world country... I'm sure that person would love to have the ability to change their life for the better, but it's just not always possible, because they aren't allowed the opportunity to take any action towards improvement. I'm mostly speaking metaphorically of my own society, because this is the society I know.)

Anyway, what I'm trying to say there is that "faith" is the wrong word for what this whole paganism thing is about for me. It's more about tapping into our inner power, connecting to the universal life energy, and other such new-age nonsense. Haha. I do believe in some sort of unseen power/energy, and I think that if we can learn to tap into it we can become better, stronger, more stable, more confident people.

So that was a whole lot of words about a bunch of different things. I'm not very good at coherency, am I?

I'm going to go do some more art. At least I can do that!

Farewell for now, readers!