Fallow

In today’s world how does an artist honor those periods of time in which she needs to go fallow? Just as plowing and over planting a piece of earth can drain the nutrients from that earth, so too can too much creating, too many words, too much noise close the life of an artist down. I suppose that art has always been a challenge. It used to be that painters were commissioned by the church to create something. Subject matter was limited. These days publishers want the next big seller, which they assume will be just like the last big seller – the new Fifty Shades of Grey, the new Twilight, the new whatever. Never mind that they may have turned these works down before they became popular. Do I want my art to be driven by someone else’s bottom line? I do not. And so I remain stubborn and insistent that my creative life is my own.