Freedom's just another word....

Art can be such a conundrum. I find myself in front of a canvas, or a piece of paper, afraid to lay down the first mark. There is a deep seated desire inside of me to make every mark count, to not "ruin" it, to make the painting or drawing immediately spring to life with no mistakes in sight. Yet I have no specific plan as to what I want to draw or paint. Because the moment I lay down the first mark I enter into the world of "freedom". Where everything that follows is a happy accident, a seduction of color, a mesmerizing experience of "what will happen next?". And mistakes follow....marks that I didn't mean to happen...erasing or covering up...which produce new directions and thoughts and shapes of things to come. And somehow out of all of that overthinking and worrying and such, something is produced that I look at and think to myself "I like it!". And then I wonder if others will? I used to think that theatre and fine art were two whole different worlds. I don't think that so much anymore. You still have to put yourself out there in the end. Well, I suppose you don't. But I've never been much of an Emily Dickinson type. I never understood how she could put to paper such beautiful thoughts, but never share them with a soul. The whole process of creating art....whatever that art may be...is such a painful one. At the same time that it feels like such a release to put it out there and make it part of the world.