Good news : I’ve restocked my Etsy shop, The Ripe Word, complete with new designs. Have a look!
The Ripe Word : Shop Update
Insecurity in Art.
Last Tuesday morning as I sat in a cafe chatting with a friend and getting ready to launch my new art shop, my best friend was preparing her culinary midterm project. This is her first term in pastry making, and she was nervous. Ten minutes into the process, she accidentally sliced open her finger as her professor watched, sliced it open badly enough that she had to leave her midterm and go to the emergency room for stitches. The poor girl. Mercifully, her instructor told her she could retake the midterm on Thursday. He knows from experience the nervousness, the danger of being a brand new chef in a kitchen full of fellow brand new chefs.
And this morning was so much like another morning I remember. It was late August, at the very beginning of my sophomore year. I was standing at my easel for the first day of Drawing I. The classroom was warm in the haze of an un-air-conditioned building, but I was scratching away at my sketchpad, glancing back and forth between my page and the prop – a lone orchid on a stool in the middle of our circle. I glanced at the girl next to me. My orchids drooped, clunky with the weight of too much shading, while her feathery petals sloped delicately across the page. I felt suddenly, regrettably faint. My face flushed with anxiety and blackness clouded the corners of my vision. I couldn’t breathe. The professor walked past, and noticed my hand poised motionless over the paper.
“How’s it going?” she asked brightly.
In a shaky voice I asked to sit down. She went and found me a glass of water and let me sit, head between my knees, until I could breathe again. I couldn’t bear to look up and see if the other students were stealing glances at me and my incomplete page. As soon as class was dismissed I rushed back to my room and collapsed in the middle of our floor to the half amusement and concern of my roommates.
There are a hundred more moments like this one built up in my head : the time when, reading aloud in front of my advanced composition class, I stumbled over the same phrase in my own essay several times before finally reading it right. The time when another art professor walked into the quiet and mostly empty art studio and criticized my painting, even though I wasn’t his student. The time that I cut my own finger while slicing bread with Erica for dinner – I nearly passed out and she had to bandage my finger for me.
These moments pile, one on top of the other, like bricks. My insecurity is the mortar that seals them all together into a thick barrier that separates what I am doing now from what I want to be doing in the future. I become hardened and indifferent to art, believing that there is no place for it in my life. I am not meant for it. It is not mine to enjoy.
But it’s a defense mechanism, this wall. It puts me in a dark place where my blog posts and poetry and sketches stay buried, lest someone finds them lacking and amateur. It’s where all my excuses are born, reasons to keep my cooking and my art and my writing to myself. It helps me hide away my thin skin.
But what joy is there in art unshared? A slip of the knife is an easy mistake. No matter how steady our hands, we are all thin-skinned and fragile, vulnerable and easily exposed. A wall will only bury us and who we really are. There is no joy in that.
I’m working to break down the walls I’ve built around myself, to bare my thin skin and share my art with others, no matter how painful the process, no matter how raw it makes me.
We have to be willing to slice ourselves open, to pour ourselves out onto the page.
Are you in a dark place? What walls have you built around yourself? What painful moments are you holding onto, or rather,
What painful moments are holding you back?
[All images by me, Bethany Suckrow.]
Introducing : The Ripe Word.
It started with this little idea I had and it grew into something surprising. Something big and unpredictable and good. And I can’t believe I’m writing this post, that in mere moments my little idea will be out there for the world to see. Nevertheless, here it is. My little idea is now a big idea about to come to fruition.
My friends, I have started a business. The Ripe Word is my very own Etsy shop I have created for selling my watercolor and ink paintings.
Where did my little idea begin? It’s a long story, but in a nutshell, I’ve always been an artist. I’ve been drawing and painting since I was really young. For a brief while in college I was an English and Visual Arts double major, but discovered that visual art was more enjoyable when I was creating it on my own terms, rather than in a classroom setting. So I quit. I chose one over the other. For awhile after that I didn’t pick up a sketchpad or paint at all, I think because I felt intimidated, but also because I was preoccupied with finishing my degree in English/Writing. After I graduated, I began to pursue it again – slowly, quietly, when I was sure that no one was looking.
What sparked the impulse to sell my work? A few months ago, a family friend began planning a silent auction for my mom to raise funds for her medical debt. She asked me to donate artwork for it, knowing that I dabble in it. I said yes without any forethought to what I would create in order to contribute.
And then I began to think : what can I create that will be more than beautiful, but will also serve as a glimpse of my mother’s story, and mine too?
Some of the text incorporated into the artwork is poetry written by myself, some are quotes from poetry or prose that inspires me and speaks to life as I see it : beautiful, brief, and sacred. The images themselves – mostly fruit and other natural objects – are meant to depict life, healthy, joyous and simple. Life the way that it was meant to be enjoyed.
Noteworthy about The Ripe Word :
Fifty percent of the profits from each sale will be donated to my mom to help her as she continues to pay off her medical debt. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997 and was later diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2002. Since being diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, she has undergone a variety of treatments and surgeries, and spent much of 2011 in the hospital. [Read more about my mom’s story here.] This is my way to honor her, and help her in a way that I am able. [In case you were wondering, yes, she does think I’m crazy for offering this, but since I inherited her stubbornness, she can’t stop me.]
The Ripe Word is going green. I’m currently researching materials to make this an eco-friendly business. Paint, paper, ink, mat frames, packaging, and business cards are all on my list of to-find. If you’re an artist that works with these materials and can give me good recommendations, I am all ears.
A Note of Thanks :
The auction for my mom was held in mid-October, and it drew a crowd of more than 800 of our “closest” friends, family and acquaintances. My family is truly blessed to have such a strong support system. Even in the midst of one of life’s hardest experiences, we have discovered profound joy. This business is in part dedicated to the people that continue to support me and my family, for the prayer and the visits and the meals and the hugs that keep us moving forward. Without you, I wouldn’t have had the courage to do this.
With Love,
B. – See more at: http://shewritesandrights.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-11-18T23:38:00-05:00&max-results=5&start=80&by-date=false#sthash.pMWFXiJF.dpuf