Going through school, academia was very structured. With intellectual parents who also promoted the idea that there is a certain, best way to approach and do everything, and that way is best learned through a teacher, approaching the unknown has always been a challenge for me. While my senior thesis provided an arena in which to start exploring how to create something of my own, this small piece (2x3 inches) represents a huge leap.

Professor Robert Nash has always been open to creative endeavors in conjunction with more traditional learning styles and forms of expression. After spending the semester learning about writing for a scholarly personal narrative, I decided I thought I might be able to take an approach to writing promoted in Bird by Bird and apply it to art. In the book, Ann Lamont describes the importance of taking very small chunks to work on at any one sitting. So instead of approaching a whole scene, you might have one session describing just the bird on a branch outside the window, and another, on another bird on a different tree... and in this slow systematic way, you build your whole work, "bird by bird."

When I first read Bird by Bird, I started to consider that I could build an entire canvas of work during the semester - a little square at a time. But the semester continued, the canvas sat, and the final night before our last class, I had yet to pick up any paint or make a mark on it.

I awoke early (4 AM) - startled into conscience from a frustration that I had not kept my word to myself that I would face a blank canvas by the end of the semester - and do a little something... one small piece. Rising with the urges that stem from guilt and conviction to a commitment self-made and self-driven, I located a small canvas in my art room, found some acrylic paints I'd used on some homemade Christmas ornaments one year, and grabbed some Q-Tips. The canvas looked at me - or so I liked to think - and the fear in me rose as did the anxiety - what to do next?

I like flowers... let's just do some flowers. So, I grabbed a Q-Tip, dipped it in a color and started scrawling some grass and ground on the bottom of the canvas.
I adore colors... so I grabbed a Q-Tip and swathed a Gerbera daisy (one of my favorites) on the canvas, then added three more to fill across the page.
My cake decorating days taught me a stylized purple blossom - perfect additions to balance the canvas.
From three simple elements - green, colors, purple blossoms - a piece emerged... and I felt I could consider facing a larger blank canvas - perhaps an 8X10 inch one in Cami Davis' Painting class next semester. We'll see, I thought, as pride settled in... I'd kept my word - I had my canvas piece... bird by bird. It had worked.