Our Life is a Faint Tracing on the Surface of Mystery - Annie Dillard

I have learned that no matter how I feel what counts is that I continue to draw and paint.  There are ALWAYS reasons I can come up with not to do this.  All those reasons are just mind chatter that really amount to nothing.  If I do not paint then I will be one more painter who doesn't paint and must bear the grief of an unlived life within me.

Search, struggle, trial and error

“The best painters have arrived at their art after long search and struggle, trial and error, and considerable thought and introspection----- and, incidentally after having painted hundreds of pictures.” 

Edward Betts

I have been struggling lately to continue doing any art.  This is a familiar struggle, I revisit it at least once a year!  Usually it involves, as it currently does, a questioning of meaning.  For example, 'what is meaningful about art?, why create it?'  All important questions to ask myself I find.  I know enough to not let any of this struggle stop me from continuing to draw.  I also know that eventually I will get back to experiencing that I do art simply and totally for the love of art.....not to get love.  I do art for the happiness and discipline it brings.  For the continued heart opening that comes with persistence.