My Art Work is Good Compared to What?

I learned to paint in oil on canvas when I was in college. I loved painting, but I never considered that I could make a living as a painter. For me, it was a very fulfilling hobby, which I was forced to set aside to make room for being a wife, raising my children and working. Over the intervening years since then, I have dabbled occasionally in painting. I would make a painting and give it away as a gift, but most of my work was carefully stored in the back of a closet and life moved on.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, I was inspired to pull out my art supplies and paint again. It soothed my anxiety and gave my hands something to do during those long months of not being able to leave the house.

When I was attending Catholic school as a child, I became fascinated by Mary, the Mother of God. I would pray to her, and she was always there when I needed solace. I have also written poetry about my relationship with Mary. When I started painting again, Mary came to me and told me to paint her, but with brown skin, so I did. Then she told me to paint her with a garland of roses encircling her head, and then she told me to paint her with her palms facing the viewer, and if she were offering healing. As I prepared the canvas for those paintings, she told me to write the, “Hail Mary,” prayer on the canvas first, so I did.  The words have been painted over so that you can not see them, but they are there, and I feel like they give the paintings a special energy.

At first, I was painting to amuse myself and to soothe the jangling stress that can arise when one is living in a pandemic. As an empath, I was feeling all the feels, and there was a lot of fear and anxiety in the air in those early days of lockdown. As soon as I decided that this time I was going to paint professionally and sell my work, I suddenly became critical of my art. I scrolled though Pinterest and countless online art galleries and I looked at the work of other artists and I became dejected and morose. When I compared my work to other artists, I was unhappy with it. I started working with an art coach and she helped me to get my head on straight and stop comparing my work to other artists. She told me to paint in my own style and in the way I was being guided to paint because I had a unique style and I had something to say with my art.

 Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and he was correct. As soon as I stopped trying to make my work look like what I thought it should look like, and started painting for the sheer joy of it, my work blossomed.  I can see improvement in my work with every painting. I am falling in love with the process and I am enjoying what I am producing.

I had been very shy about showing my work because I figured, if I were as critical of my work, I would not be able to bear receiving criticism from others. But I sucked it up and started posting my work on Instagram. I created a Facebook page for my art, and I started making short videos about my art.

Last week I received my first commission, which gave me such a thrill.

Now, I am balancing my time between working on commissions and working on my own paintings. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to make my living from doing my own creative work. I return to seminary in September, so I will be balancing work and school and making art. I intend to grow my art practice to the point where I will be doing my ministerial work and pursuing my art career. I hope to even find a way to combine the two, which would create for me a life of bliss.

I will end with this lovely quote from Lao Tzu, “When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everyone will respect you.” Rather than being concerned about whether others respect me, I respect myself and that is what matters.

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