For a very long time I have felt like I'm a passenger in my own body and my own life, going through the motions, doing what's expected.
From making small birthday cakes because it fitted in with raising a family, to creating huge wedding cakes because it was a natural progression from that. Whilst I certainly don't regret the choices I have made, I've never really chosen a career path that made me happy.
I've tried to branch out with my own style a few times over the years but always given up quickly when it's just been easier to make what others expect.
I tried to make alternative wedding cakes which were moderately successful but I still played safe so that I would still get orders rather than losing the followers that loved the safer styles. There was always so much that I wanted to do with it and so much untapped potential that it became frustrating rather than rewarding and I lost any of the love that I had for it. You can't do a job like that if you don't love it, that cake is the centrepiece to someone's big day and without the passion, you will never create to the best of your abilities, so it was time to move on.
Chocolate came next.
Gothic chocolates that made my little heart sing!
For awhile at least.
I thought I'd cracked it and would spend my days creating weird and wonderful chocolate sculptures. Skulls, antlers, bones, teeth, anything that fulfilled my desire for something darker.
In theory, fantastic! In reality, people don't want to buy it if it looks too good.
"But I wouldn't want to eat it!"
A phrase that was repeated many times by many different people.
I found myself trying to come up with more and more things to keep customers happy, gimmicks that would encourage them to buy. Bit by bit I was losing the reason for doing it in the first place.
I was spending my time thinking of ways to keep other people happy and had forgotten that it was me that wanted to be happy!
So here we are now.
One last ditch attempt to create in a way that is true to me.
I might have grown up thinking that being an artist was a fools game and won't pay the bills but I've never even given it a chance. I believed what they said when I failed art at school and I have never had the self confidence to stand in front of people and stand up for myself.
I have to take control, I have to stop being the passenger in my own life and truly commit to what I want to do and what I want the world to see.
If that means that I put my work out there and nobody buys it, then so be it.
At least I will have tried and at least I will finally have shown the world my work exactly how I want it to be seen.
I can hold my head high and say
"This is what I make and I'm proud of it. I don't want to change it for anyone, I don't want to make it FOR anyone, this is what I make and I'm finally doing this just for me"
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