Purple Daylily, 2008
Acrylic on canvas
Kristina Cain
I got a message on Facebook from someone asking if I painted this painting. I instantly recognized it but I couldn't remember who I had either given or sold it to. The current owner had purchased it at a flea market. Hearing that made me feel kind of weird. Obviously the person who received it from me did not want it anymore. The current owner loves it and has given the piece a caring home. I love hearing when one of my pieces has a loving home no matter the journey there.
I felt compelled to find a good picture of it and try to figure out how it left my possession. I spent a couple hours today looking through my photos and documents. I found it deep in my Facebook photos. When I painted it in 2008 I was not very good at documenting my work. (Photos or writing down owners.) I think it was part of the fundraiser for my son's trip to Washington DC for the JrNYLC in 2009. We asked for donations, sold my paintings, and had a bake sale to raise the money. Back in 2008 I mostly gave my work away to people who told me how much they loved a piece. Selling the pieces for his trip was difficult. I lacked confidence in my work. It was important to me that people didn't buy them as a favor to me. The fundraiser was the first time I had no way of knowing if the person really wanted the piece.
My feelings on selling my work have changed since 2008. Then I felt a lot of pressure to make money from my work. I felt like my work wasn't successful unless I made money. I read an article a few years ago that changed how I see my work. (Late Bloomers by Malcom Gladwell in The New Yorker.) I am no longer interested in selling my work. It's not who I am. I just want to create. Not worrying about selling is really what I always wanted to do but that article gave me permission. I have nothing against selling work. I think it is fantastic when artists can make money from their work. It's just not likely part of my journey.
Because I do not put a bunch of effort into marketing myself, my work is unlikely to increase in value -which makes it more important that the owner loves the piece. Who knows, if I go out in a blaze of glory after pissing off the wrong person or spiral into self-destruction my work may increase in value. Either way, I don't want people to buy my work just because they think it will increase in value. I want my pieces to find loving homes. Today I found out this piece has found one.
Purple Daylily was part of the rebirth of my artistic expression. In 2006 I started volunteering at Springfield Little Theatre in Springfield, MO. I stumbled into it. I dared my husband to audition for The Full Monty. He got the part of Dave. The scenic designer for the theatre, Chuck Rogers, was one of his cast mates. When I made hand-drawn thank you notes for the cast, Chuck asked me to help with the set of an upcoming show. That turned into 10 years of volunteering for the theatre. Working for Chuck brought back my desire to create my own work.
I have always been a creator. As a child I spent a lot of time making things. When I heard about a new craft I wanted to try it and perfect it. When we made round loom belts, hats and scarves at school I made red yarn necklaces for everyone in my extended family to wear when they came to our house for Thanksgiving. While I was kicked out of the house in the summer I would use rocks, sticks and leaves to build things for ants to climb on. I'm sure they would have preferred I didn't build around their ant hill but to my child mind they loved climbing all over my work. As I got older and took art classes I started getting very self-conscious of my work. If it wasn't perfect I thought I was a terrible artist. I felt like every mark I made had to be exact. This harsh mentality hindered my growth as an artist because growth happens in mistakes. I was terrified of making a mistake. I practiced in private and destroyed nearly everything I made. Motherhood gave me new opportunities to grow. I dropped out of college and dove into raising my children. Crafting became a big part of my life. I was still concerned about quality but the bar was lower. A personally designed handmade birthday party invitation doesn't have an exact comparison.
When I began volunteering at the theatre I had many hours of crafting under my belt. I was a super volunteer. I was more skilled than the average volunteer and obsessed with doing a quality job. I spent long hours dedicated to the sets I worked on. However, community theatre requires speed. Speed has never been my forte. At the theatre it was more important that the pieces got finished than they be done well. Speed was a requirement, not just a request. Often having only a couple weeks to complete an entire set turned speed into a skill I wanted to master. I don't think that I ever really did get fast but I did learn to let go. I would spend weeks trying to create what Chuck wanted as fast as I could then, at the end of the show, it would all be destroyed -usually in only a couple hours. Participating in the striking of the set helped me let go of the preciousness that can stifle the ability to create. Treating a piece as precious can prevent breakthrough moments. Breakthroughs often happen in frustration and the depths of disgust. Destroying my work helped me move on.
After a couple years of volunteering I started craving creating my own work. At the same time I was growing a lot of flowers after buying a new house. The two activities came to together in creating paintings of flowers. It was a great place to start making my own paintings. I enjoyed mixing colors, trying to blend them together without getting muddy, experimenting with different brushes to find the ones I liked most, pushing and manipulating paint, and just making something I thought was beautiful. Working on my own work gave me the chance to slow down and balance the stress the of theatre. After painting these beginning flowers I was inspired to go back to college and finish my BFA in painting. It took many years and I had to go through a lot of growth as an artist and a person but I did finally finish last year.
Pieces like the Purple Daylily were the beginning of my renewed connection to being an artist and birth of my true love of paint. This piece was one of the first pieces that reconnected me to who I am as an individual. It means a lot to me to know it has a loving home. Thank you Diana for buying the painting at the flea market and contacting me to let me know how much you enjoy it. This experience is inspiring me to review my path and see what from my past I can incorporate in my future.
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