Obsessions

Let's face it, we all obsess at some time or another about something. It is easy to obsess, but not so easy to avoid the trap of replaying tapes in our head over and over again. Eventually, enough is enough, and we move on.

I frequently have obsessions in subject matter for my art. Seems I fall in love with something, and paint it over and over again, changing the size, the palette, or the composition. I don't fight this obsession; I just go with the flow, until something else catches my attention.

For a while, it was beaches - beaches in the day, at dusk, with people, with dogs, natural beaches, grassy beaches, Hawaiian beaches, beaches with palm trees, and beaches from different perspectives. Then it was river grass - in pastel, in acrylic, big format, small format, long paintings, small paintings, multiple panel paintings.

I have "moved on" to forsythia, and I can feel it developing to other colors besides yellow - small panels, big panels....you get the idea.

I don't dwell on why this happens, and why I succumb to these "obsessions". Perhaps they are not obsessions as much as explorations. The more I paint, the more I want to explore the subject matter in different ways, until I tire of it and move on. It is not that I think I have mastered anything, or caught the essence - usually, something else just catches my psyche, and I find myself going down a different road.

Life is about taking winding roads, and roads that sometimes seem to go nowhere. But usually a road goes somewhere. And just maybe that pot of gold is down that road. Usually though, I just find cool stuff, stay for a while, pack my bags, and drive on.

Life is a journey, and the more roads we explore, the richer our lives can be. Perhaps that explains why I have so may art supplies for ideas on roads not yet traveled. Thank goodness in life journeys, there are no rising gas prices, no expensive cars, no traffic lights, and no accidents. But there is also no insurance that we make the "right" choices, because there are no right or wrong choices. There are only the choices we make.

Happy traveling,
Cathy