Creative Renewal

Progress Day 1 to Day 8

A Facebook memory popped up this morning that made me realize I’ve now officially been carving stone for five years. The memory showed a slightly-less gray but, I have to admit, slightly-better groomed me beaming at the camera while showing off my first “real” sculpture.

As is so often with such things, Facebook picked a particularly apropos time to remind me of how far I’ve come along this journey, as it happens to coincide with what I feel to be a turning point or, perhaps more rightly, a branching along my artistic path. Branching as in expanding, growing, reaching out in myriad new directions all at once. Let me slow down and explain as I sense there may be some nugget of wisdom lurking somewhere within these thoughts if I can manage to draw it out.

I’ve recently begun a new project, carving an irregular block of beautiful, Portuguese pink marble. After six days, I suddenly realize I am having more fun working on this piece than I have in quite some time. In fact, I am feeling such a pang of joy in the simple act of carving that I find it shocking I had not realized it had been missing. After all, it was the pure joy of shaping stone that fueled my passion in the first place.

I love caressing the stone in my hands. I love the repetitive motions of hammer, chisel, rasp and sandpaper. I love working outdoors under an open sky with the breeze wafting the dust away as my tools gently coax the forms and colors from the stone. I can think of many reasons that may have led to my gradual loss of joy in the sculpting process. But I think I would rather reflect on why it so suddenly returned, and with such undeniable power. What is different about this stone, or this design, or the process or tools? Or what may be different about me?

A couple of obvious factors come immediately to mind, the first of which is the lack of an imminent deadline. Currently, I am not under any pressure to finish in time to submit the work to a gallery show or marketplace, and I refuse to entertain any self-imposed deadlines. I am free to work as much or as little as I desire, and to work at the pace of my choosing. Having no deadline also allows me to forego the power tools I’m often forced to use if I’m to finish a piece in time. For me, there is no joy to be found in screeching grinders and saws.

Secondly, the spring weather lifts my heart and urges me to come out and play, to queue up my favorite music, let the wind lift my hair, and put chisel to stone. After a long winter, throughout which I find scant few days to carve, the warm mornings bid my hands and heart to join the sunrise. But, although these are reason enough to feel joy in the moment, I am certain there are loftier factors at work.

Two that I can identify are born of increasing confidence. Confidence in my skills and confidence in sharing my vision. After five years, I realize my skills in using the various tools has reached the point that I no longer doubt my ability to shape the stone to match my vision. I no longer discard ideas simply because I believe it is beyond me. Likewise, I now have confidence that I can overcome whatever problems the stone, or tools or design may throw at me. Even when a particularly difficult issue arises, I know my hands will find the solution. Such confidence quells my tendency to overthink.

I also realize that I have always allowed my vision to be held hostage by my insecurities. Throughout my forty-year career in corporate America, I was the poster child for Imposter Syndrome. I felt I was never qualified enough. I was never good enough. I could never work hard enough or put in enough hours. I always felt like a fraud. Unavoidably, I brought all these self-doubts along with me on my artistic journey. Consequently, I restricted myself to creating pieces intended for a specific audience. I now realize that, subconsciously, my goal was not to bring my unique vision to life but to gain approval of others that would satisfy my need to feel accepted, to not feel like a fraud. Fraudulent artist. Fraudulent Cherokee. Fraudulent human being.

It would be foolish to believe that I could completely overcome such deeply-ingrained insecurity, but I no longer feel compelled to subordinate my artistic vision to the perceived whims of others. Perhaps it’s because I’ve now won enough ribbons, sold enough pieces, and spent enough time at markets with artists who have become friends that I feel accepted as a “real artist”. Or perhaps I’ve simply reached the exalted state of having no f***s left to give. Regardless, I now feel the freedom to go boldly wherever my vision takes me.

This newly-found confidence in my skills and my vision has allowed me to more fully embrace a completely organic approach to sculpting. It has never been my method to painstakingly draw the completed vision on all sides of the stone, as I see many sculptors do. Nor would I ever consider learning the mind-blowing process of using a model and “pointing device” or even calipers. I’ve always preferred letting the form grow organically as I chip away at the stone. But with this current project I have leaned into the process with intention. I began with a series of unrelated inspiration pics, gleaned from a wide variety of sources and depicting an even wider variety of subjects and compositions. Common themes included non-human archetypes, animism, and ritual and elemental magic. I want this piece to conjure a glimpse into a forgotten world of ancient magic where mystery and possibility reign supreme.

And so I began carving, deciding only that I was working on an avian archetype figure, an owl most likely, who would be engaged in some form of ritual ceremony. He would be drumming or chanting or raising talismans in gratitude to the unseen forces giving shape to the cosmos and drawing power from the swirling mists.

Over six days, I have roughed out the face, but I have yet to make any firm decisions beyond what is actually beneath my chisel. As incredible as it may sound, I have been working not yet knowing whether the figure is a man wearing a bird mask or a creature of fantasy, both bird and man, or something else entirely. And I am deliberately refraining from making such decisions. Instead, I chip away at the stone, trusting my hands to find the natural contours while my mind bathes in the zen-like purity of motion.

As I write this, I believe my hands have now made some crucial decisions, and I am glad to follow their lead.

This has become a much longer post than I intended; however, I do believe I have excavated wisdom I can carry forward along this never-ending journey to artistic self-actualization. I have rediscovered the joy of sculpting. I have found the courage to put aside self-doubt and trust my hands to give shape to my vision.

Most importantly, I am reminded that art is an expression of the heart and, as long as I allow joy to fuel the tapping of my hammer, the resulting work will be magnificent.