Finding Your Creativity
I have been an artist/wood sculptor for almost 6 years now. I started carving wood as a hobby and it turned into a passion. I never had an interest in art and have not taken any lessons. Using a hammer and chisel, I started carving Palm Wood Tiki Totem Poles because here in Cocoa Florida there is an abundance of Palm Trees. I decided to try carving wood fish because I have fished all my life and I realized the local Tiki Market was saturated. My first wood fish carving was a Redfish carved with a hammer and chisel from cypress wood. It was rather abstract even though I have caught many and used reference photos while creating it.
I found it exciting to try carving different fish species. I started my own website Islandhomedecor.com and sold fish to friends and co-workers I began taking photos of every fish that I would catch for reference material. I studied every detail of each fish that I was carving. Now that I look back, I realize it is similar to learning, reading and playing music. The more I created the better and more realistic each fish looked. With each custom wood fish carving, the level of detail increased.
Living in Florida most of my life and learning to surf I began to shape wood surfboards wall art and surfboard furniture. I also started doing craft shows and was very successful at selling my art fish and surf. Then I took a quantum leap and applied for my first Juried Art show. However, the judges did not think my work was worthy so I was rejected. That made me try harder. I found using 3d models (frozen fish that I caught) made a better model than photos alone, so my art began to improved. Again, replicating wood fish is like reading and playing music. The more you practice the better you get. I applied for more juried fine art show and I was accepted. The next step after getting into a fine art show is placing. Taking 1st, 2nd or 3rd place in a juried fine art show is the only way to become a well known artist. And that is what you must do is place if you really want to become a successful artist.
I have been invited to and participated in over 20 fine art shows now. My works has been selected by judges for final judging/placing for awards 5 times but only once have I succeeded in 1st place in wood folk art category. This was good but it was not enough to satisfy my goals. Once again, being defeated in my goals helped me to figure our what I was missing. I began doing custom wood fish mounts sculptures where I create a fish from exotic wood of the customers choice and make it look exactly like the fish they just caught using only photographs and the dimensions of the fish supplied by the customer. I found transparent paint that we add to make the fish look realistic but does NOT hide the beauty of the wood grain. This has become very successful but not my ultimate goal.
I applied for the Juried Fine Art Show in West Palm Beach known as the Sunfest Art and Music Festival. This was the first time that I had applied for this show so I was apprehensive but I was very happy when I was accepted. After doing what I thought was the best work of my art career specifically for this show with hopes of placing, I did not even get selected for the final judging.
On Sunday as I walked around after the awards were distributed I was amazed what what had placed. Outlandish, and crazy things mixing time, space and animate objects and then it hit me: I had learned to read and play the music, but I had yet to write my own music. I had become very proficient at replicating custom wood fish from models and photos but I had not yet created my own sculptures that no one had never seen before, a creation that only exists in my mind. And that you see, is what it will take to go where I want to be in my art career. I realized that I have to create and expose the things that only I can see. In order to become a great artist you need to create your own music not just read and play existing music. And once you write your own song you play it to the world with the hope that someone, somewhere will appreciate it.
I have been spending time sketching some wild things that I will soon sculpt into 3 dimensional wood art . In addition I am now branding my artist name Snidely Wood and we are creating SnidelyWood Studio.com.
Look out world, I am going to create some things that will take my art to a new level. God has blessed me with a vision to fuse nature and art. After 6 years I may be finding the key to my creativity as an artist. Snidely Whiplash