Cycles of Terror -Surviving my own mind, while making art.

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Worked on organizing stuff for self-portrait show today.

 Here is a rather humorus account of what it is like to wander in my mind through what I call the artists cycle of terror...

These are the typical stages that I go through:

1. Today am at the point where I hate my work. I mean just short of throwing in towel and starting over. Self-doubt is no fun. I really wonder what the hell I am wasting my time on this...and then it occurs to me, that I don't know any different and would hate to try something different. Heading straight for a rut!

2.  Leads to not giving a shit.  I will at this point let my work sit in the corner collect dust and let it wait for my return. I will avoid my desk and all things that are tied to the project as if I were to have some form of dementia. Now what was that thing I have to finish....hmmm oh well.

3.  Time passes and turns into absolute terror.  Not just your run of the mill kind. All my senses are fully aware that I have been slacking like a teenager in summer. Oh crap I have too much work to get done. My brain tells me to cut corners and just get it completed....I do just that and yes I make mistakes, tons of them. Oh well it is finished and out of my hands...oh wait, just one more thing, no don't hang that there aaaargh...

4.  Work is shown, drink too much wine and hides in the corner. By now I am on the verge of collapse, nerves are frayed, stomache jumpy and full of butterflies...I just want to throw up! Maybe it is the wine or the inability to eat anything. Who knows. Typically I hide in the corner behind some one tall, or pretend to be an unknowing visitor to someone elses opening. I can barely speak a word., then again maybe it is the wine. I am in hell by this point. Mind you I have only been at the reception for about 30 minutes. I pretend to be invisible and clutch my glass. Damn, why do people actually try to talk at these things...I need more wine. Out of wine I make a mad dash for car and regret not chatting with more people...at least I survived and at worst I may have to stop and get some dinner...the terror is over (for now)!

5.  Finally I will be so sick of it that I never wish to see it again and pack it  away if it doesn't sell. The show is over. Time to pick up the remaining work. I hate to chat on the phone. Occasionally people who have bought my work want me to call them for some kind of chit chat. Often than not I decline, not out of rudeness, usually out of terror. Do they want to return the work? Show it at another venue? Maybe just the story behind it. This is getting to me. Who the hell am I? Terror starts up and I am at work so I cannot have wine or contemplate escape. I ponder the life of Emily Post with absolute jealousy!

6.  Contemplate quitting art all together. It is true at this point I make elaborate escape plans that I don't usually follow through with...except for this one time. After an overwhelmingly successful group show opening at two venues in Chicago on the same night, I panicked like no other time. Suffice to say after it was all done and over I refused to call the people who bought my work, quit my studio job, sold my condo and moved to the country and gave up making serious art for about ten years. The worst ten years of my life. That is until my mother put a bug in my ear and picked up a cheap digital camera for me to take last pictures of her before she was taken from my family Christmas Eve, 2010.

7.  Start new body of work and the cycle starts again.
lol I know the cycle of me making art and then showing it....it is not for the faint at heart. I have been awarded a grant from the Kentucky Foundation of Women and am back at the beginning with a new project that is almost done. Hang in there for more blogs about the upcoming show in May at the Murray Art Guild in Murray, KY. Right now I really hate my work....that will change ;)

Cheers,
Stacy Michelle Frett
Photographer and Mixed Media Artist