October 5, 2009

Saturday I went to WeightWatchers--the first meeting since our return from Ireland. We talked about the causes for our individual eating disorders and what we do about them. I said that I was able to become absorbed in making art and then didn't think about eating badly.

Immediately I could tell that the others dismissed what I was saying, because I am an artist and they are not. The leader asked, "Is your art like a hobby or like a job?" Here was my big chance to lay it out well, and I didn't because it caught me on the run and I didn't have a prepared answer. What I did say is this: We are all artists when we enjoy making something beautiful. I can't think of a woman who doesn't love some sort of "artistic" pursuit: gardening, sewing, quilting, cooking, applying make-up, whatever. But our society doesn't honor this in us. Quite the reverse! These activities are put down as "women's work," and the artist is some incomprehensible character who operates on a hidden, mysterious level. Even doing something well is not labeled as artistic, though there is no reason that it couldn't be.

But defining what painting is to me is still a bafflement: like a hobby because it is motivated by love, like a job because it is demanding and consuming. It is the Grand Passion that walks with us throughout our lives.

PW