The Whistling Ducks and Artists

Sofia, Pastel, 12x16, by Carolyn Hancock

The whistling ducks live and socialize alongside the pond created between two fairways behind my kitchen. Lots of whistlers. A couple of months ago, a neighbor started putting feed out every afternoon. Can you guess?  the number of whistlers multiplied.

After yesterday's heavy rain, they separated into groups. One group in the middle of the fairway, one group of the same size at the edge of the pond. And then the aloof group of loners, maybe half a dozen, spread out, distance between each of them. Watching the three separate groups, I related their actions to the diversity in artists.

There's the group in the middle, joiners, waiting close to the feeding station, thinking something will just come to them, someone will give them a meal.

There's the group of doers, foraging, pecking in the ground for their own meal, knowing survival is up to them but not knowing if they will find that special delicacy to fill a hunger.

Then that ultimate group, the loners, going it on their own, doing things a little different, fending for themselves, willing to take a chance.

2004 marks 20 years since I began my art journey, and I've been in and out of all three groups. Am I a successful artist? No, in the sense of monetary achievement. I was lucky in the beginning to live out of the country with a group of people who felt a kinship with the my artwork; it struck a memory of travels they themselves had taken. And they had the money to purchase artwork. Back in the States, exotic locale paintings and realism held no sway, people wanted abstract or artwork they didn't have to emote with. So I changed groups.

I painted flowers and landscapes, subjects that provided an easy connection. I worked hard at it, and I think ultimately that the "worked hard" showed through the painting - the emotion was not there.

And that brings me back to the question: am I a successful artist? Yes, in the sense that I have rotated through the groups and circled back to being myself, part of that group of loners. Successful in that I know that my heart and passion lie in painting people. Successful in knowing that I am willing, maybe even eager, to look into different methods of applying my pastel, in seeing the subject. Successful in finally understanding that those threads of feeling I had in painting a character are the very same ones that cause a person to cross the room to look at my work - and those only exist in my figurative work.