I went to life drawing last night, for the first time in a long time. Ughhh, boy am I out of practice. Yeesh.

A few things happened last night though that got me thinking this morning.

Turns out, I’m pretty lame actually

While most of the class was 50 plus, after class was over, I started chatting with the two local university art students who came. Two very nice people, but I was quick to notice how entirely out of touch I was with my contemporaries.

When I mentioned that I paint (gasp) and paint landscapes (oh my god), you’d have thought I said I lived in the 1800′s and eat squirrels. I mean, landscapes are just not hip and cool. They’re just not happening kinds of things to paint. They’re not edgy, they’re not exciting. They just kind of sit there.

Never try to explain to a 22 year old why it’s so amazing the way the wind blows through the clouds and it’s just so powerful and zen and exciting. They will just stare at you like you’re a freak. Trust me on this one.

It also brought up my insecurities – nervous thoughts ran through my mind. What if they’re a million times better than me because they actually have an education? What if I’ll never be as hip and cool as them because I don’t have a degree? What if, what if, what if?!

And earlier on my friends, Ms. Jealousy and Mr. Competition came out to play. “Well I want to be better than them. And I have to work really hard to prove that I’m better than them. And what if they’re better than me? Well I’ll show them and their snooty university degrees!” (Mind you, this was before I even spoke to them. They didn’t care one whit that I hadn’t gone to university. But Ms. Jealousy and Mr. Competition don’t care about insignificant details like that. They want results!)

We want very, very different things

I would just like to state for the record, that if one more person tells me I’m crazy for wanting to live in Prince Edward Island, I’m going to go f***ing berserk. I’m not kidding.

I mentioned I was moving to PEI. The male student told me I was nuts, that within 2 years I’d hate it and that there were so many other more interesting places I can move, and that “Don’t worry, you still have time to change your mind.” Two things – 1. you’ve only known me 5 minutes so if you’d like to stop telling me what to do I’d seriously appreciate it and 2. your opinion of something does not mean it is good or bad because guess what, you’re not God.  It just severely illustrates the vast differences between me, and the large majority of my peers.

PEI has very few people, the shopping sucks, it’s small, it’s quaint, and there are no night clubs. Your version of hell, my version of heaven. So bite me, okay?

At first it pissed me off, because hey, get off my back asshole, but then I realized that he just could not comprehend what I wanted. That something about me wanting to move there frightened him so much that he spent 5 minutes trying to think of anywhere else for me to move to.

It baffled me so much, that I couldn’t even be mad anymore.

And the worst part about all of this was…

I started to question myself again. I started to think that I was supposed to be someone else, someone better, more interesting, more edgy, more cool. That my art should be different, better, hipper, whatever. That I just shouldn’t be me.

Are we back here again? I thought. When am I just going to give this up and start accepting myself as I am, uncool artwork and all? When will I get over this need to be someone else to be worthy? When will I  get it that I am me, and that’s okay?

But then the best part happened

I got over it. Right then and there. I let it go. I said to myself, okay, fine. You know what? Let’s start being the most awesome me I can be. Let’s stop worrying about what everyone else is doing, because if you’re different, then fine, you have less competition. Let’s stop worrying about hip and cool, and start worrying about the fact that you’re out of practice. That you’ve stopped painting.

Let’s start thinking more about how much raw energy and passion you can put in your work, and less about how “edgy” that may or may not be.

Let’s get back on that horse, and start creating.

So today, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to start painting again, I’m going to start pushing myself again. I’m going to unleash that raw, crazy energy and see where it takes me.

I’ll let you know how it goes.