not too happy with my blog... and trying to do it different

For some time now, for a long time actually, I don't feel very happy about my blog and about my online life in general to be more accurate. 

I post what I have made and take care that people can find it back on my blog and in my webshops. Sometimes I write a few additional lines about the piece of art and that is it.

Nothing wrong with that in fact. That is what an artist is supposed to do, isn't it? Make nice art and try to make it visible for the public and maybe even sell it...

Still, I never feel very satisfied when I've posted an image of a painting. It feels a bit empty. A bit not honest, a bit unreal maybe. I never could really figure out why this is. Why do I have this empty feeling around this way of working?

Today I was reading in Austin Kleon's book 'show your work!' and I had a little inkling of what it might be that bothers me. In fact, my artmaking is never about the endproduct, about the actual painting or drawing that I show at the end. No, my artmaking is all about the process, the emotions while drawing the lines, all the ideas and associations that come to mind while choosing a color or covering up the whole piece. Stories or poems float in and out of my mind, leaving traces in the piece of art or not.

Putting my work in my webshop suddenly 'reduces' it to a product, which of course it is in the end. But I would like to keep a bit of the dreams and the magic that where there while I made this piece because this is what really matters to me in making art. Not the endproduct. Once I consider the painting finished it loses a lot of it's importance to me. Don't get me wrong: I love it when people like my art and when they buy it I'm very happy. But art, my making art is so much more for me. It's like breathing. I need to make art to feel alive. I need the process of making art.

And maybe that is what my blog should be about. About what happens while I paint, what I think about, what my doubts are, what stories come to mind and what it means to me. Just because that is what my art is... not only an image... (and a link to a webshop).

Thank you, Austin! In your book you mention a way of sharing your creativity with the world and it is 'think in processes not in products' . When I really read that part today I suddenly realized that my art is all about process.

Read more about Austin Kleon here