Acid baths

Sometimes, actually most times before I get painting I hear cliche statements of self doubt run through my head; "You don't know what you're doing" , "this idea is garbage", "go get a real job!" blah, blah, blah.

I've worked a variety of jobs but it wasn't till recently that while working on a construction project I was tasked to hang protective tarps over nickel plating acid baths.  It was a dirty, greasy, smelly facility and my colleagues and I had to climb over and under these industrial monster machines to hang these tarps.  At one point I was doing yoga off a ladder to secure the tarping directly over a bubbling bath of chemicals.  I paused, realizing my stupidity, here I was working precariously over these chemical baths with no fear of falling or hurting myself.  Yet, in the studio and in front of a blank canvas, I could sit there for days for fear of painting, for fear of failing.  I vowed that day dangling off that ladder that I would never let my internal monologue of self doubt stop me from painting.

This tiny epiphany wasn't the end of those self doubting voices, but it did give me another voice that would stand up and say, "shut the fuck up and get on with it!"