Overwhelm Awash Inarticulate Unworthy

Close your eyes and imagine soft swathes of gossamer-thin silk floating in a warm breeze and wrapping themselves around you. Your eyes can't quite focus through the rainbow of layered colour but you're aware of thousands of butterflies and sparkling birds dancing across your field of vision. The most enchanting music is playing and you're losing yourself in a haze of texture, shape and image. You smell the sweetest fruit and drink an intoxicating draught of euphoria...

This is how I feel when I look at art. Or at least this is a tiny, inarticulate description of what goes on somewhere between my heart and soul.

When I'm taken by these moods I feel a creative calling. I want to connect with my own art; to dive into the depths of inspiration and swim between, up and through layers. I am awash with emotion, craving to make, to create; but at the same time feeling so small and unworthy. I feel carried away by a cruel current as I desperately grasp at the flotsam of ideas and hope that I might atain the lofty heights of those I so admire.

It's too easy to give up. To allow that overwhelm and lack of self belief to win. Right now, I would far rather write about how I feel than try to capture it with paint. I have no idea where to start. I want to collage, stamp, embellish, paint, draw, mould, shape...

Does anyone else ever feel like this?

***

Some time and some art research later...

Ah, apparently some other artists do (particularly those named Henry)...

"Creativity takes courage"

Henri Matisse

“I find in all the artists that I admire most a disturbing element, a distortion, giving evidence of a struggle . . . . In great art, this conflict is hidden, it is unresolved. All that is bursting with energy is disturbing - not perfect."
Henry Moore

I feel a tiny bit better now. OK, Henri et Henry. I'm listening.... I'm off to face the struggle.

Image is a screen shot of my Pinterest favourite artists board - the source of all this angst!