On not being able to paint

My brother is a painter. He paints trompe l ’oile - which means fool the eye. Here is one of his paintings. Not my style but he is good at it. Somehow that he is an artist and was also my mother ’s favorite led me to avoid art, focusing instead on intellectual pursuits. Still something in me kept wanting to paint and draw. My brother once said that anyone could draw, which was not encouraging to me at all. I took the art classes in school that were required but once finished with them I t urned away from painting or any kind of art for many years. I think the last thing I made was a paper mache dog that I meant to be a dachshund but looked sort of like a weird brown worm with legs and ears.I lived in Portland, Maine for a long time. Portland is the home to a well regarded degree- granting art college. In the early 90 ’s I decided to take a drawing course through their continuing studies program. I hoped to find it a class for people who did not think of themselves as artists, a class that would support and encourage people like me who wanted to draw but were intimidated by the doing of it. I did not find that — the people in the course saw themselves as artists and then there was the critique of every assignment. I dropped out.A couple of years later my good friend and I found two wild wonderful women artists who were offering classes for people just like us. And it was just what I needed. Supportive, encouraging, full of laughter — a place where my very timid arti...
Source: Jung At Heart - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs