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I've seen this topic discussed among my fellow artists, but tonight I am feeling it so strongly, the only way to get rid of it is to talk it out!  I am talking about the dreaded FOMO.....fear of missing out.  For an artist, it can prick your senses and make you work harder, or try something new, it can make you step out and make you do something out of character.  It can even lead you down artistic paths that end in setbacks and mistakes. 

I've been working steadily on increasing my inventory in a gallery in coastal Carolina.  A fall group show looms, and I have had some pretty steady sales, even through the summer doldrums.  I need to be boosting my inventory, coming up with some truly beautiful pieces that I can offer my collectors.  I need to be focused on the task at hand.  But you know what?  FOMO rears its ugly head, tempting me from what I know I MUST do to be sensible, reasonable, and profitable. Distractions loom large.  An opportunity to show a piece or two that will take a lot more of my time and effort than it will ever return.  A chance to write poetry for an upcoming event...again, recognition and appreciation, but it is not the right time for it.  So it goes by.  Each one of worth, each one enticing, but held in the balance....they are lacking due to timing, effort, or distraction. 

FOMO continues to nag at me, stealing studio time joy that I truly need.  Sometimes one must  keep their head down, narrow the focus and just keep doing what is the right thing.  If opportunities are truly beneficial, they shine out bright.  They don't feel more like obligations.  So I will fight this fear of missing out....this fear that the train left me at the station.  When my train, the one that will take me where I belong, comes down the track, the whistle will be blowing!  I will be ready, in spirit and in skill. I will have no doubt.

So begone, FOMO....back to my studio, my choice is made....back to create!

View from beneath the live oaks, looking across the marsh, just as the sun begins to color the sky.  End of summer, with the first hint of autumn on the breeze. Do you see yourself, sitting on the veranda, sipping the first coffee of the morning, the rich, toasty flavor filling your taste buds as the aroma enters your nose?  A breath of wind  rustles through the sawgrass marsh, and a heron rises above the water, searching for its next meal in the next tidal eddy.  An occasional flip sounds from the water as a turtle drops off a submerged limb into the shallows.  The sunlight catches the edges of clouds as the sun hides just under the horizon, poising to rise.  Another beautiful day in the lowcountry of the South....ain't life grand?

Ever had a painting subject that you come back to again and again?  The image of the elegant woman in white keeps popping up as I paint along.  She has a pensive, thoughtful look to her in most of the works, as if, even in the opulence of her attire, she knows there is something more in life. 

Believe me, I am no vision in white myself, and I don't have a model who fits that bill, but she comes to me again and again to be painted.  Between completing my usual landscape pieces, every once in a while, as I sit at the easel, the paint comes together and I am invariably drawn to paint her again. 

This artwork reminded me of Ophelia, Hamlet's doomed beloved....caught up in his hatred and revenge toward those who killed his father, Hamlet's madness drives Ophelia to madness herself.  Her loved father murdered by accident by her beloved, it is more than she can bear, and she slowly, surely, drifts toward a final end in the river.  As I painted this, I kept my princess' pensive look, as I have in all the previous works, but in her beauty, I couldn't help but imagine -- will she really go through with it?  Won't she change her mind?  I like to think that she will....that she can turn it around.

In today's world of uncertainty, even madness all around us, I do like to think we don't have to submit to the craziness.  We can look at ourselves in the water, see our beauty, and change our minds.