A Year of Making Art, Day 198: Performance Anxiety

November 3, 2007  Day 198

All day today, I've been sluggish, mildly depressed, and anxious.  I couldn't figure out what was bugging me at first, but finally realized it must be the fact that I am going to be on two panel discussions next week:  one for artists and one for writers.  They are both on topics that I know a lot about, so I assumed I'd be relaxed about it.  Unfortunately, my performance anxiety never lets me relax when I have to appear before a group of people.

The solution, I figure, is to prepare really well for both events.  I had been putting it off since I'm busy with other things, but now it's time to get started.

We also have my sister Laura's husband Jim arriving tomorrow to stay with us for a week or two.  He is a photographer and is coming to check out Ithaca as a place to live and do his art (Jim's Eyes Digital Photography).  Laura is not coming with him (she was here for ten days earlier in the month), so I guess I'm a little nervous about making sure he has a great time while he's here.

In any case, I did a drawing this morning in full color, and had to call in black and gray to rescue the overwhelming clash:

  Drawing #203  12" x 9"

Maybe I'm just worried about the cataract operations coming up at the end of the month!  For an artist, having her eyes operated on is definitely a scary proposition.  Will my art look different to me afterwards?  Will something go wrong?  Yikes!

(Note:  There is a gap between the dates I'm writing and posting in order to give me time to get ahead.)