Fwd: Artwork

Earlier today I sent this email to someone I know. I believe it to be possibly the best explanation I've ever been able to give as to why I no longer focus on my drawing as much as I once did.

Begin forwarded message:

Date: May 19, 2013, 10:29:54 PDT
Subject: Artwork

The picture attached to this email is not a photograph. This is actually a scanned image of my own original artwork. I specialize in photo realism with colored pencils. If you look closely at the lower right-hand corner of the piece, you will see my signature.  This is a portrait of my hero, Audrey Hepburn, in the movie My Fair Lady. It took approximately a week to finish this piece, and it was only 8 x 10.

Below that is a black-and-white image of Audrey Hepburn from the movie Charade. It's nothing more than black and white pencil on gray paper.  Again, my signature can be found on the piece, but in this one it is dead center on the bottom.  My signature obviously changed between the two.

The last one down is probably the best representation of my signature for an era. The horses name was Mysterian. She was very sweet mare at the horse farm where I worked when I was 19 years old. In fact, even though the date is quite a bit later than that, I originally began drawing this piece back when I worked at the horse farm.

The last one down I call stargazer. I saw a photo once in the magazine that I very much liked, and I thought it would make a statement.  So, I found a black piece of paper and drew this within 20 minutes or less.   A couple of years later, I painted this onto a black necktie and donated it to charity. It was a project for the place I was working at for that time. It brought in the most amount of money for charity of any item my company sold that year.

Many people tell me that I am wasting a gift by not continuing with my drawing. I don't see it that way. Yes, I did enjoy it. Yes, I made money doing it. I imagine i probably would still enjoy it now, but I was not happy with being tied up on the commercial end of things. Selling it for charity is one thing. Selling my works of my art for the mere commercial aspect of selling art never appealed to me - And I honestly feel that my true talent is in my writing.  As much as people think I excel at artwork, I didn't have the passion for it that I have for writing.

Any or 2009, I was in the middle of moving when my U-Haul was stolen with everything I ever owned inside it. Every single one of these pieces except the black-and-white Audrey Hepburn were inside.  I had already sold that piece. I will never see them again, and I think that dealt a far more crushing blow to my artistic psyche than I realized.  

These days, if I can't store it in my heart or online, it has little value to me.   I can't seem to keep things in my hands. It's happened several times - things have all been taken away from me. I can't take anything with me anymore. You can't take it with you when you die.   

Having lost so much of my hard work, my love of my own art, it really hurt. I eventually got over it, but having lost absolutely everything so many times now, i just learned not to put that much value in physical things. My artwork is nothing more than a physical thing.