Image of the Week: Solitude

© Durga Yael Bernhard

Artists spend a lot of time alone.  I earn part of my living as an artist, and I feel fortunate about that.  On days when I'm working on a children's book, designing a logo, or updating my website – or even writing this post – my morning commute is from one room in my house to another.  In summertime, I work out on my deck, weather permitting.  It's a blessing to work in a peaceful, rural environment, surrounded by trees.  

But it sure is lonely.
 

As mentioned in my post last week, most of my work as a commercial artist is conducted without any direct contact with clients or publishers.  Communication is done via email; often I never meet the person I'm working with.  

So on my most creative days, I'm alone.  

I grapple with solitude.  I draw my solitude – the drawings shown here are examples.  I've done three or four paintings on the subject, too.  But the drawings are simpler, more raw, more direct.  That's the beauty and power of drawing.

Many people crave solitude, but I have too much of it.  Sometimes I feel cursed: why would a people person like me be assigned this destiny?  Sometimes I run from it.  But the very thing that generates so much time alone – my creative drive – always brings me back to it.  I don't have television, and can't sit through a movie without thinking about the painting I could have worked on in those two hours.  

So back I go into my solitude.  And run from it again.  And go back again.  Like a tide going in and out.  Like a shoelace weaving back and forth, bringing two sides of life together.

That just gave me an idea for another image.  

Time to do another sketch . . .