(This blog has been reposted here from my art gallery website that is now incorporated with this website.)
Welcome to “On Fresh Canvas,” the blog for my new online art gallery & store!
Why “On Fresh Canvas?”
Unfinished Business.
Dreams long-ago set-aside.
The time has come to tell the story. Time to bring the unfinished business into the light. Time to reawaken the long-hushed dreams.
A radio advertisement was airing here recently, one that I heard frequently while working in my part-time job (meant to be a source of stable income as I try to build up a photography business, but now gone the way of the pandemic…only temporarily, I hope).
The radio ad… an insurance company selling motorcycle insurance.
The narrator would say something like, “This is Bob. Off his bike.” Bob would say something completely monotone and dull… something like “look how long my fingernails are getting.”
Then the narrator would say, “This is Bob. On his bike.” With the motorcycle revving deafeningly in the background, Bob would yell exuberantly at the top of his vocal power something like “LOOK at that INCREDIBLE VIEW!!”
It would go back and forth like that… “Bob, off his bike.” “Bob, on his bike.”
The catch phrase to end it all was … “You’re better on your bike.”
I’m not buying motorcycle insurance (yet), and I’m not trying to sell you on the virtues of motorcycles.
I relate this radio ad to you because it has to do with my own journey, my own discovery after a lifetime of being “Gina, on her art” and “Gina, off her art.” After too many dry seasons (some FAR too long) of living without “doing art,” I now realize it is time to get back on that motorcycle, so to speak. It is time to get back on my art! Gina, you’re better on your art!
Do you want to know my earliest memory of doing anything “creative?”
A toddler. Sitting on the floor with the hallway drawers and cabinet doors wide open. Cutting any paper I could find into strips. I distinctly remember thinking “this one is a carrot” and etc. It is a brief but very lucid memory.
What led me beyond that, beyond the strips of paper that came alive as vegetables?
Dogs. Elephants. Horses. In that order.
I have another brief memory of my father standing next to me at the table as he quickly sketched a cartoon dog on a scrap piece of paper and handed it to me. I remember being fascinated and wondering how I could do that. So, I practiced and copied what he gave me.
Apparently (I’ve been told) as a preschooler or maybe in kindergarten, I had my own pattern for drawing elephants. I could whip them out, one after the other. I don’t remember that very well, but I am quite certain they didn’t much resemble elephants.
Then in primary school it happened. I was given a Walter Foster drawing book – How to Draw Horses. Do you remember Walter Foster drawing books? Brilliant stuff! I was off and running! Well, off and drawing… drawing horses running, horses rearing, horses standing… whole horses, half horses, horse faces. Then I started in on the dogs again, and added cats, deer, bears, whatever I could find to look at and copy. Of course, this was long, LONG, before the internet, so I had to find my subjects in magazines and books. I expanded to include trees, landscapes, sometimes buildings, and finally people. It was around this same time that I had access to my first simple camera. That ignited a spark in a slightly different direction of creativity, but it was slower to develop (pun intended) into a full-fledged love affair. It would come to full bloom later as a young adult, and today it is my preferred choice of creative outlet.
I won’t bore you with the entire art development process of my childhood, but I will tell you that I was extremely shy as a child, definitely an introvert – probably on the extreme end of the introvert scale. I could never find the right way to fit in with groups at school – always the awkward one. I “found” myself in my drawing (and painting and calligraphy, when I started to broaden my skills). I found meaning in being able to make something come alive on paper with just a pencil, eraser, and my fingers (for blurring and shading)… to be able to look into penciled eyes and see the being, the creature, the personality shine forth. I spent hours, HOURS (seriously) every day after school in my room sitting at my desk drawing and listening to music (I had an 8-track player and a record player all in one! Cool, yes, I know!).
Fast forward decades. Wow. Decades. (Not saying how many decades, but you can guess from the fact that I had an 8-track player as a teenager… and actual 8-track tapes to play in it.) Art has been such an integral part of who I am, of who God made me to be, of how I express myself, how I find myself, how I know myself, how I know Him, how I find my way in the world (or sometimes hide from the world).
The seasons when I have put art aside as “child’s play” or “non-essential” (a term we are all familiar with now), have been very dry seasons indeed, seasons in which I found myself shriveling up inwardly, seasons where I tried to convince myself that my creativity was mediocre at best and had no place in the “serious business of being an adult”. Looking back, I see those seasons had great importance (“building character” is the phrase that comes to mind), but I do very much regret that I let my art fade away to the background during the rough patches. There are people from different seasons in my life who will be shocked to know that I am an artist. I regret that is the case. I hope it is a lesson learned as I travel from this point on, along my journey day by day.
One of my favorite unfinished pieces from my young adulthood has come to symbolize, for me at least, the times I left my art unfinished and raw, rough edges and all – the times I turned away to something else, put down the pencils, closed the sketch book… for too long.
Of course, it is a horse. It is always a horse that seems to draw me back into my art during those dry times. I am not really sure what year I started this horse pencil sketch. It is from an old sketch book that could have been done in my 20’s or my 30’s. I just know that I suddenly stopped the process and never went back to it.
Until now.
This rearing horse, with all the imperfections, incompletions, paper creases, wayward lines, and age-darkened edges, is a symbol of my return to what has always called to me.
Gina, you’re better on your art.
Unfinished business – on fresh canvas. Old art, new start.
I offer this unfinished horse to you as a token, a pledge. This is where the story begins for us – On Fresh Canvas. But it is also a continuation, an ancient story, the unearthing of shelved memories, a refreshing of what is past – not just for me, but also for you. I want to use this blog as a monument of sorts, a testimonial, a place to tell the stories behind the art pieces – the little scraps that together we will weave into a significant and intricate tapestry of life.
This horse will stay this way – unfinished. But you will see it again soon in a new way as it helps me tell my story – our story. Because that really is what art does – it tells the story of life, and we all have a contribution in that story. I do. You do.
So… buckle up for the ride, and enjoy the journey!
You’re better on your art!