developing a studio practice

After being out of art school for a year, I still make stuff sometimes, though not as often as I would like.  I keep thinking back to my senior year classes where we discussed the development of a studio practice and how to continue being an artist outside of school and requirements to create.  I definitely would like to continue to make art.  That is really all I ever wanted to do.  If I could shut down the rest of life's requirements and just create all day that would be grand.  I have a lot of ideas but haven't had the patience or organization to sort them all through.  And I think I am also afraid of failure.  I wish that was a fear I would dismiss more easily.  Making bad art isn't failure, it's just learning what not to do next time.  But I think the problem is that I want to skip the process and get to the product.  I've always kind of been that way.  I need to learn to sit in the mess a little longer before something interesting emerges.

Tonight I spent a fair amount of time looking at art supplies online after perusing a Blick catalog - one of my favorite sorts of mail besides personal correspondence - and almost made an order until I looked at my balances and freaked out.  Darned automatic loan payments and the beginning of the month.  It's ok, it just means I have to wait a bit longer and think a bit more carefully about my purchase before I make it.  In the meantime, I have a lot of art supplies already.  In my room.  Begging me to use them.  I just have to wait for inspiration to strike.  I did start a small 8"x8" panel painting tonight on a cradled panel, the way panels ought to be.  I've been thinking a lot about the sky, so at the moment it is a yellow, clouded sky.  A sunset may be predictable, but it also may end up being one.  There is something lovely about sunsets, and something fitting about them for my current state of semi bliss.  It's a layer painting.  I'm thinking of adding pinks to it, I'm just hoping I don't go for overkill this time.

I need to work on organization.  In general.  Not messy organization, but organized organization.  Just because I know where in what pile something is does not mean that the place is organized.  I need to work on organizing my art stuff so that a studio practice is actually a plausible thing in my little space I call my room.  I have a desk and table easel... I just need to have space on the desk to use the table easel.  But I guess life is a continual work in progress.