Making Time For Art
By Mason Gehring
April 5th, 2021
Making time to make art is no small feat. There have been so many other things going on in my world recently that I haven’t made a lot of time for it and I have a lot of things to do! I believe that being an artist is a practice and it’s a job. You need to be working at your craft frequently and with focus to keep your progression as an artist. Society has a romantic view of artists having muses and working when inspired and those things can be part of it but truly it’s a job and you have to work even when it’s not that inspiring.
If I’m not painting, then I’m sketching ideas and working through compositions. Or doing small painting studies of themes or subjects related to what I want to work on with my bigger paintings. There is always something to do. My least favorite thing is to prep surfaces for painting. Stretching canvas is not a strong point and then the waiting and repetitive gessoing and sanding process is super boring to me. I just want to paint and get at it.
I have two more large canvases that are sitting in my living room waiting to be stretched because this process is like asking me to do my taxes. (Which I need to do those too!)
Sometimes making the time to write this blog also falls in there of things I’m not strong at and will procrastinate to no end.
But this is all part of the process. And making the time to get all of it done, even the parts that are boring need to be done.
