Take Me to the Fair

I spent October and November driving down to Mineral Area College a couple times a week to paint the fair scene for MAFAA’s production of “Meet Me in St. Louis.” As I was working, I couldn’t help but giggle to myself. I’m a little vertically challenged and I somehow had agreed to paint the largest backdrop in the play that not only was 3 extremely large panels, but would also require the use of a ladder to reach anything above 5 and a half feet- and there was a lot of surface area over 5.5 feet.

Did I mention I have a slight fear of heights?

As a less than graceful person, anything I can easily fall off of I am NOT a fan.

But I hugged the ladder tightly and trudged up it over and over until the project was complete.

My other challenge, I don’t like creating when others are watching me. I am not a performer. I like to create behind a closed door and when I am finished show my work (sometimes not even then) and say, see what I’ve made. But with a project this size, in the middle of a community college theater, there are no closed doors. You paint while the players revolve around you.

Paint with people watching, create large scale and broadly (no tiny details), use a ladder until my legs wobbled from nerves too much to climb, and let the work go into the world and be seen no matter the number of flaws I may see— these were the challenges in front of me.

Sometimes it’s good for us to wade through the uncomfortable.

I somehow do not have a completed picture to share with you (only work in progress photos), but I did finish it in time for the play. The director said it looked great and asked me several times if I liked it. To be honest, I would change a 100 things if I could. But it doesn’t matter if I liked it or not. What matters is that I did it.

Artist lessons learned. Adventures out in the community. Embracing the good and challenging aspects of both. Being vulnerable. This is Artist Rewilding.