Artist's Block, Motivation and Challenges

I am just blogging today about how I feel about being an artist and what motivates me to create. Well, I am not even sure if that first sentence is going to describe the rest of what I will write here. Never mind, here goes.

People often speak of artist's block, when I was training to be an artist one art teacher said to me two things that I remember. You are only as good as your last piece of work, the other was that you should as an artist create everyday. I don't know whether this has motivated me, it probably has.

I have been wondering what artist's block is really about for me. I don't normally have a shortage of ideas. In fact my problem is that I usually have too many to cope with. I never will have enough time to do all the things that buzz around my head, not if I lived to a century or more. So it's all about choice.

I started to participate with many challenges on the web. I did this as a way of keeping in touch with other artists, this important for me. I live in a rural area and I dont see any other artists at all, I wish I had a friend near by who I could talk to about my passion, someone who is also passionate about textiles in all it's wonderful forms and possibilities. I doubt if that is going to happen, but I live in hope.

Well, thinking about the reason why I joined all these challenges, it's not for the challenge so much as the meeting of people. Ok, I am struggling a little at present keeping up with the challenges, but as I said, it's all about choices. I have decided I am going to have to make some serious choices soon because running a challenge myself aswell all these fingers in pies elsewhere it is going to mean I won't get as much done as I would like to. You try some things and if they don't work for you, you move on.

I wonder what the motivation is for others, I would really like to know. I get a buzz from making for someone in particular. It pleases me to make something for someone else. I don't know why this is. I often think, I am going to make something for me, but it doesn't hold the same motivation for me as it does to make for someone else. I think this is why I enjoy making cards to swap.

So where do I go from here. I need the interaction with other artists, artists often find themselves so isolated. They work long hours to create and this is usually done in isolation. I like to get feedback, but on these challenges and other sites it is feedback which is always far too polite to be really useful to me. What I mean is that I haven't yet had anyone make a neutral comment about my work, let alone a negative one. Having been through art college I was trained to expect criticism. In fact at the end of every week we would have critique which was extremely useful for everone. I miss this honest opinion. I know that my work has changed even since I have been involved online, it has become far too twee for me as it goes. This isn't because of the online community, it's more that I suppose I have been testing out ideas in being commercial. I think I must have been thinking about the tourist industry and wondering what I could take from my surroundings in order to make art. It's become far too chocolate box for me. Well, where do I go from here?

I am thinking about starting another site, but one with a big difference. A site where artists can put there work to get honest useful but polite criticism. I wonder how many people would like to join? Good question. I think I would have to moderate it well. I don't want others to feel that they will be attacked verbally in anyway. I think that I would have to work out some guidelines. I think it would be nice to create this site with someone else to help, two heads are better than one. Well I think I will sleep on this idea for a while and maybe I might just try it.

If anyone out there reads this and feels that they would like to get involved perhaps they would let me know. Tricia