Is One Where One Would Like to Be?
One of the tough questions on our creative journeys – besides “How do food replicators on Star Trek ACTUALLY WORK??” – is, simply: “Where am I going?” Not always easy to answer, is it?
Some sources suggest looking to the past to see where we’ve been, for history teaches us much. Others insist upon mapping out future minutiae to secure a foothold. My experience is I can’t predict events that might adversely re-shape my life even five minutes from now, let alone over the course of any given year. By the same token, I also can’t fore-tell when something great is just around that next corner. But I’ve learned to trust that good things balance-out life’s catastrophes. I’ve observed this over and over again.
Despite my global view, my little corner of the world is really quite small. Sometimes I see the synchronous events occurring in my life, and other times I can’t even come close to guessing how a situation came about. I’m reminded of the phrase: “When a butterfly flaps its wings in Madagascar, it causes a hurricane in your backyard” (or something like that). Any set of events is a long and complicated – yet connected – chain reaction that we’ll never fully comprehend.
While I have more or less learned to trust my path (even if I don’t always understand it), it helps to shed my shut-in persona now and then to find like-minded people with whom to hang out. Most recently, my affiliation with ZaPow Illustration Gallery in downtown Asheville has been the biggest example of this phenom.
As an artist, I have been drawing since earliest memory. Somewhere in the midst of my Point A to Point B path in school, I switched my fine art discipline to something more commercial. While that resulted in a fascinating journey, that very simple dream of making a living from drawing is still at the center of my brain. And when I least expected it, I found my people.
Asheville is a kind of magical place. What are the chances that I would relocate to a town that’s now home to a rare style of gallery, one dedicated to illustration, narrative and story-telling? Where I could draw what I love to draw, participate in workshops, and interact with a community that cares about my wishes, dreams and progression? A professional passel that loves to draw and celebrates life. As co-owner Lauren Johnson, herself an accomplished illustrator known as LjPatton, says: “A rising tide floats all boats.”
But things don’t just fall into our laps. A little effort and outreach is needed. The way I entered the ZaPow world was via a public workshop; I then eventually (and timidly, I might add) asked about submitting my work for consideration. I really, really, really wanted to be a part of this, but was also a bit insecure.
My past holds some interesting experiences with rejection in the art world, along with some freakishly fun opportunities and recognition. For a long time, I didn’t notice the evenness, but looking back over my life, I can see that the positive butterfly flaps have balanced out the negative ones. And if they didn’t, I’d have a hurricane in my back yard – right?
Sometimes, seeming setbacks are opportunities to do things like try harder and seek more supportive environments. A little action helps one find one’s actual people, not the people one might have thought one was supposed to be hanging with.
My experience at ZaPow has been fun, nurturing, friendly, developmental and awesome. A butterfly flapped its wings in California, and I was blown eastward. A butterfly flapped its wings for Lauren and her husband Matt, and an illustration gallery was born. A little reaching past my old limitations, and I’m inside their store rather than just looking in the window with my reflection asking me: “Where did the time go?”
So, if you wrestle with the “Where am I going?” question… perhaps ask yourself what is that core, passionate, spine-tingling activity that you love to do, or still want to expand in your life? What feeds your soul, and are you doing it? What is one thing you can do today to nurture the You (artist or not) that is unrestricted from past definitions?
The future is pretty much wide open, especially if you remember that not all butterfly wing flaps are bad. I wish you much success today as you search for your people – the ones who will help float your boat on that rising tide!