Art is my Fix

© by Elke Riëlah Scholz, EXA
July 24, 2008


Without art I am sure I would be dead, metaphorically and/or in reality.  I'm addicted to my art.

Art is my passion, my intimate craving.  It is the water in my mouth for desire.  Art is my silent healing. It’s my obsession. It has helped me balance my unbalanced world. Art is my private partner and my hero.  It led me to explore other possibilities in my life. Art taught me compassion and other points of view.  It opened up my thinking to meditation and gave me hope and peace of mind.

For so long I did not know that art was my salvation.  I just did it, showed up and was agonized by it.  Shows and public performances were a surface torment.  Was I pleasing or being pleased? A struggle that I was barely aware of on occasion.  There were times I wanted to quit or thought I should get a regular job and other times I was so stubborn.  Could not my art be my job and my inner passion.  Did they meet? Or would they be separate? Did it even matter?  My inner demons never left me alone.  Yet in this lonely sport I feel alone. If I took a break or got distracted too long, the urges, the niggling, the nagging, the drive was haunting.  I don’t know, I can’t help myself, I have to do it.

As a youth I was fanatical about intense and long hours of solitary physical exercise.  That added fuel to my fire and helped me survive but I stayed puzzled about any kind of inner resolve.  An early drama class and creative writing class relieved some of my turmoil.  It was an opening of a creative introspective journey.  A new hobby, dangerously close to narcissism.

Even though I took many detours, even though I created to please, there was part of the process that evolved silently with or without me.  I did not see it.  Years later I saw how my play had changed, how my language had changed and despite myself, my art had changed and I was changing. It’s only after time that patterns and developments reveal themselves.  Only then could I see where I had gone. And then I could decide where else I wanted to go.

What I noticed is in the act of creating, commercially, or purely ecstatically, one transcends one self.  With or without trying, character, vision and perspective change. Emotional blocks become unblocked.

For all of us the increments of change come differently.  Some happen gradually, some suddenly like a storm raging in. Sometimes the change moves back and forth. Where is my highest creativity? under stress? duress? deadlines? tragedies? commissions? pure unleashed hot passion and pleasure? For me, it’s all of them,  just some are more fun then others.

As I am begin to savour more in my vintage, the passion flows deeper, purer.  Do we come to this as we mature? Has it been because of the time spent creating over and over again? How do I  please the obsessive creative urging? Do I even know at any moment, maybe I hope to know.  I try different things.

Only questions, no answers. No right or wrong way, only a rightliness in the moment. For that’s I know, one artful moment at a time.

Elke Scholz is a full time artist, lecturer and workshop facilitator. I met her while working in Bracebridge and was very impressed by her holistic outlook toward herself and her art which produces a sustainable and profitable career in the arts. Her thoughts are embodied in her book "Loving Your Life". I suggest you pick up a copy or attend one of her workshops.

All the best,

Darryl