Happy New Year - or How to Get Going Again When the Going Has Been Rough.

Happy 2015.
I haven't posted since November 29th -2014.
Now, even I am beginning to wonder where I have been. . .
The end of my 2014 was full of drama when a 48"x 36" painting I had shipped to Texas arrived there in several pieces.
You try to take those sort of things in stride but it was very hard when the client is crying foul, the insurance adjuster is claiming fraud and I am just crying.
I spent a lot of December painting a copy of the destroyed piece then set it aside to cure and left with my family on a long awaited trip to Germany for the holidays.
Our time in Germany was magical-  beyond expectations,
and I did not paint a lick - or even have a desire to do so.
I know, to some artists that is heresy, but I felt used up in side - or maybe just fed up.
It happens to almost all artists at some point - the lack that comes from only pouring out and not soaking in. The hardest part can be figuring out just how to get the juices flowing again.
Sometimes what we need is a really long soak in a really big tub.
I think what I needed was a lot of really dark beer in a foreign country.
But, you don’t need to go abroad to gain a new perspective -  sometimes you do need a bit of soaking.
If your 2015 has been a slow starter, don't panic.  Stress, work and so many other things, common to us all - can dry up the tank of Inspiration. And it is amazing sometimes how far we often go - on empty.  Hmmmm. . . .
Be good to yourself.  If you are an artist type, or even if you aren’t - get together with others, take a class where someone else directs the creative activity - and soak it up. A class can be the recess in your week- a time of creative play, or the lab of discovery that can become pure alchemy.
All the best to you in 2015.