How to Make Good Coffee or Maybe Art

I’ve been working on my drawing skills, but it has not been all fun and games. Two- and three-point perspective entails finicky rules, and I’ve never been a fan of rules, especially the ones in games of micromanagement. After all, who plays such games? Control freaks. I will forever be grateful for the lessons that taught me that I control almost nothing but a few details in my very local environment and my attitude.

One of my early jobs out of college involved catering to the whims and tyrannical dictates of a small, beady-eyed woman who had managed to twist and contort and wrangle her work experience, connections, imperialism, and tenacity into a company named after herself, one in which she had to bow to no one, except those who wrote and enforced governmental regulations. She made the most of it.

I’ve tried many times in the past to rein in my art, to start with a plan, to progress logically from one step to another, and I’ve met with some success. What’s more, on a fairly regular basis, I ask myself why I don’t hunker down and “do it right”? In one form or another, the answer always seems to be simply that I don’t want to.

Maybe the problem mostly comes down to inspiration and the fact that I don’t want to spend a great deal of time looking for it. So, instead, I grab this or that and tell myself to use it.

Maybe part of my problem is the literalness I tend toward. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the my Poetic Inspirations 365: I used each poem like stage directions. It’s a bit embarrassing, really. After all, shouldn’t metaphorical thinking be a prerequisite for artists?

Maybe remembering is just as important. That might explain how I’ve managed to hold my own. At some level, in each work, whether a poem, a photographic image, or a painted piece, I am drawing upon memory, and I have a feeling that it might just be enough.