Trying to find perspective...

I remember watching a program on t.v. about Lucian Freud, painter and grandson of Freud (yes THAT Freud). I love to see how "artists" work: their environment, their techniques, their passion. (I must qualify "artists". I feel anyone who is creative in anyway is an artist. Unfortunately, somehow I leave myself out of that label. I feel for Me to be an artist, I must slave diligently day after day on Art ie. painting or sculpture. Nevermind that I do many creative things; somehow I am never "good enough" or "dedicated enough" to be qualified as an "artist") (Ok, that had way too many quotation marks!). He painted Queen Elizabeth II, and I remember the uproar it caused.

I remember watching him paint these huge realistc portraitures that took literally a whole year to complete. It seemed to me that that was how I saw how *I* *should* be as an artist. But taking a whole year to paint a picture? I have never done anything everyday for a year (except breathe, eat, and do other basic functions). I am seriously impressed that I have posted every day in November, and I certainly would not call all my posts "deep" or "thought provoking" or even "interesting" (hello, post of this last Wednesday). I often get caught up in the *shoulds*, or *not enoughs* and get paralyzed. There is no way, I think to myself, that I can paint every day for a year (for years). And so I don't. Because in my brain, if I am not meeting some impossible standard for myself, then I just won't do it. And I am missing out. I love to create. I want to create. I just have to figure out how to be gentle enough with myself to be allowed to be an "artist".