In Violent Times, You Never Have to Sell Your Soul

As I look back at the past month, I am astounded at what all has happened to the world and to me personally. For my money, March is no longer a valid month...crossing it off next year's calendar immediately. However, nothing is all bad or all good. I did lose my mother in law, dearly loved, but my son, Chris, came home safe from Baghdad....and won't have to rotate back.
Personal stuff aside, I am also a Quiltart member as many of you are. I mostly delete but the titles are occasionally intruiging. However, we are a very self-absorbed bunch.....how can I do better work, how can I get validated in the quilt world/art world. How dare reveiwers make negative comments about an exhibit of art quilts? Whoa! folks, let's take a deep breath and relax.
With all that is going on in the world right now, what do we have to hold on to....to take comfort in? Obviously, art....but does that have to be validated publically to be worthwhile? It is in the act of creating that we are the closest to our souls......it is not in the viewer's remarks or the impact it has on the viewer. More importantly, does art have to be socially relevant? There is a load of talk about art not being art unless it addresses some deeper meaning or screams about injustice of some sort. Well, okay there is certainly a place for that art and it is a valid place......but there is also a place for beauty...just the expression of the love of the day....the joy of another day in the sun, rain or snow.

The world around us is a violent place from Florida to Baghdad, in Indonesia and Palestine, along arbitary lines in Israel and the ocean shores of Thailand. We can choose to speak to this violence or not. What we can always do is add beauty to the world.

We may all worry is it good enough but that is a trap that is inescapable....it will never be good enough. There will always be someone else whose work you admire and wish you had done.....but you gotta do your work. Looking outside is fun for ideas or inspirations but looking outside yourself isn' t the mirror; it is the mask.

That I will never be a famous artist is a given; that I will always make art is an absolute. All the violence in the world may intrude in our lives and our art.....but we have to keep working.
The point of the story is filter through your own eyes, not the eyes of the world. Make what you heart calls you to make......and don't ever sell out. Hold onto your truths.....whatever they are.
Beauty is truth.....truth is beauty.
Sheesh....I have been thinking way too much...that is what happens when a philosophy major becomes a quiltmaker......drivel.
See you when I get to California.