Update on the Journey

Hello Friends,

I apologize for not writing as consistently as I had planned when I started this journey.  I went on a mini vacation with my family to Payson Arizona, and hiked the Tonto Natural Bridge State park (It was so beautiful!  If you are ever in AZ I highly recommend it) When we got home I needed to do some soul searching.

The journey so far has been a wonderfully frustrating experiment and I have learned a lot about my self.   For the past few weeks my friend and mentor Petra had been trying to warn me about burning out.  However because I am stubborn I did not really listen to her. Petra if you are reading this I sincerely apologize for not listening to your words of wisdom.   I realized that while I was on vacation with my family “I had to create a face for that day” and I did not want to.  I wanted to be with my family, and I resented the fact that I was forced to create.  I was whining to my husband and he asked why? What would happen if I did not create a face? Would the world come to an end? l  was annoyed with him because I made this huge commitment and I was going to keep it if it killed me….so I told him that.

My wonderfully wise and loving husband asked me….why would you want your art to kill you? Isn’t this supposed to be fun?  He told me that he had been worried about me because I have been so stressed about thinking of a new face for every day and that he could tell I was not enjoying this anymore.  He was right.  I was starting to hate my art! This was not okay.  So I took a few days to decided if keeping up with this journey was worth me hating it in the end….and the answer was no.

As one of my friends Suzette (who is not an artist but has been a huge supporter) reminded me that this journey is fluid and will be changing as I change and grow.  I am also interested in learning other things with my art.  I want to learn about story telling, and creating animals and flowers not just faces! I also want to learn new mediums and with all this that I want to learn I was feeling trapped by the faces.

When I reflected about when was the last time I was truly enjoying my art and what I was doing I realized it was when I did not have an agenda.  I just played.  So that is what I am going to do.  I am not abandoning faces all together but I am going to allow my self to follow my curiosity or to take a break if I need it.  I will still keep my commitment to my art time every morning…but probably not a face every single day.

I will post here when I feel I have something to say or a special piece of art I want to share with you.  Some may say I am a quitter or that I am giving up.  I disagree….I tried an experiment and in the end it was not right for me at this point in my journey.  I may try again some day…I am not quitting just re-evaluating what works for me.  I created 48 faces in 49 days and that is a huge accomplishment.  It is more courageous for me at this point to say enough, then to press on in fear that others may think of less of me for not continuing.    

You can follow me on Facebook at. www.facebook.com/leanneschuetzart

You can follow me on Instargram at @leanneschuetzart

Here is what I have been working on.  I can already see the joy coming back to my art!

Here are all the faces I have created in this journey.

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Thank you to everyone who followed along with me on this journey.  I appreciate you more then you know!!  Please tell me what you think in the comments below!