Carolyn Dube is a self-taught mixed media art adventurer and educator. She make a lot of “mistakes” so that means she has had plenty of practice saying O.O.P.S: Outstanding Opportunity Presenting Suddenly. What used to feel like a failure, is now seen for what it really is, an exciting opportunity. In this interview, Caoline shares her artistic journey.
Creativity has been a thread throughout my life. It was how I handled the world. It was my meditation, my escape, my time. There is a struggle with art; it's not all lollypops and rainbows every second. But it's a worthy and meaningful struggle. Choosing what color to use and where to place it on the paper—it's the kind of decisions that move you forward in an exciting way.
When I started making art, I wanted everything to be perfect, but things would go differently. I finally accepted that things were not going well, so I began to have fun and trash my art. Once I allowed myself to mess things up and see where it took me, the fun began, and magic started to happen.
We figure something new out every time we pick up our art supplies. We learn things about ourselves, what we like, what we don't like, and what a new supply can do.
If you go to a museum and look at art, you will see a wide range of artwork. Looking closely at the art, you can see sketch lines and covered parts. The great artists didn't get it right the first time, and outstanding artworks don't show up magically; it's a process.
When I was at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I looked at some paintings and thought that many people would look at this piece and say that it is not art, and others would say it's excellent art. People cannot agree whether paintings presented in a museum and sold for millions of dollars are art. So, why should I care what they think about my work?
People get wrapped up in their heads way more than they must. So, there are things that feel like they are very complex, but they are not. So, I like to break things down to just the basic understanding of them. Once you understand a concept in everyday terms and in a practical way, then you can see how you can arrange things in different ways and put things together to get different results.
I would get very frustrated when I would make art very early on and things didn't go as planned. I knew my frustration wasn't helpful, and if I kept going, things would work out eventually. Still, I was so frustrated that I couldn't see straight, making things a lot more complex than they had to be. When I looked at what was happening and broke it down, I realized that my frustration was the most significant issue. I was thinking of ways to knock myself out of the frustration phase.
One way that was helpful to me was saying, "Oops." I could not say "oops" angrily and take myself seriously because it was just a silly word. That would snap me back to the realization that this is just paper and paint, and everything is replaceable. That would get me into a reasonable headspace to return to my art. So, I came up with OOPS: Outstanding Opportunities Presenting Suddenly, formally known as a mistake.
Caroline's advice for beginners:
Just play with your art supplies. Remember that whatever pressure you take on is something that you choose to do, which means you don't have to take that pressure on.
The second advice is that you don't need a particular supply to make art. Creativity and enjoying your art supplies don't require anything exact; it's just using and exploring what you have.
Check out Carolyn’s work at: http://acolorfuljourney.com
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