Kim Blenkhorn

I have to confess I am a creature of habit. I love to rely on what is safe, familiar and comfortable.  I live in my comfort zone, too often, but I do enjoy visiting new things on occasion, because its exciting. Trying something new gives me a rush of both fear and intoxicating adrenaline. the fear tries to convince me to never try anything new or different, it could be dangerous. but the adrenaline, wants me to live! I almost never regret trying new things, I usually feel proud of myself and a little smarter too. It takes courage and bravery to try something new, like last week when I drove into Boston for the first time ever in my life…alone. But I did it, I survived and I felt so incredibly inflated with pride and confidence that my world expanded a little. Now I can drive into Boston and go to Blick art supply store.

I am finding more and more that in order to discover my potential I must without question or hesitation, try new things. So I dipped my little toe in a drawing class. I am self taught and drawing lessons are something I have never ventured into. To my eventual delight the teacher, Kat, had me trying new mediums each week. I dabbled with charcoal, I always thought too messy; I tried colored pencil, I always thought to unforgiving; charcoal lifting, which i didn’t know was a thing and figures, which i assumed to difficult. What I learned is I was able to do them all very well. i needed someone on the sidelines pushing me, cheering me on, shouting from the bleachers “don’t give up, you’ve got this!” Another thing i learned is that i am a terrific artist, not just with a pencil but pretty much with anything I can create with, the creativity is in me, and i can do things that are hard and uncomfortable and things I don’t always want to do if i just dip my toe in and finish. originally when we were assigned the gorilla, did not want to draw him, i thought he was creepy and I wasn’t excited about it. In fact, I tried to get out of it. In the end when the teacher insisted, even though I wasn’t into it and i didn’t think i would succeed, the gorilla turned out to be my best drawing yet and the teacher displayed it. naturally my confidence got a boost. but those are the things that happen when you go for it!

you might not be an artist, you might never have picked up a pencil to draw in your life, and i promise i am not trying to convince you to draw. But what are you good at? Do that! Do more of it. Is it travel, singing, building things, learning, surgical procedures, exercise? The world needs you! maybe its conversation or working with children or making people laugh. There is something you enjoy doing if you are alive. You enjoy it because your good at it and we were designed for pleasure. We don’t find joy in things we fail at, we find joy in our strengths. Here is my challenge to you: in what way can you expand that skill or talent? Find a new angle for an old trick. Can you go a step further? Can you step perhaps outside your comfort zone and challenge yourself. Perhaps it’s going up ten pounds next time your weight lifting or running an extra mile, or going for that extra degree or signing up to perform in front of an audience or traveling to a new city or heck a different country.

If we do not test ourselves with new obstacle and stretch ourselves to new lengths, we will never know what we are capable of. We will never rise to our potential and then what? What happens when we refuse to try new things or meet new people or sprawl out into the world? Nothing. nothing will happen. Is that how we want to live, consumed by nothingness?

When i signed up for this drawing class, i had never had formal drawing lessons before and i was skeptical if they could teach me anything. i was proud and stuck and then i joined the class, and began to learn things, then i was humbled and moving forward. i think sometimes we have to literally get out of our own way, get over ourselves and how we might look, or how we might fail, or what will others think. and that is why humility and success often travel together, it permits us to take risks rather than white knuckling what we are already good at and refusing to let go of what has worked in the past. I have a lot to learn and i am learning it. As i improve in one area of life, it’s sort of like a rub-ix cube, i automatically grow in a totally different area of life. it makes me feel like I’m not the greatest being in the universe I’m just a regular person that is growing and learning with the rest of the human race and I’m alive!!

Change can be unsettling but it can also be beautiful and adventurous and force you out of a comfort zone that keeps you stagnant. To all my fellow artist please try something new this week, something you have never done before in regards to art, try a new medium, take a class create a website, form an art club, teach what you know to others. Do something and it will almost like, keep your heart beating. For everyone else who might be reading this – comfort zones are check points not dwelling places. Moving outside of what is familiar and safe is frightening but necessary, if you want to grow. None of us would ever have decided to be born if we knew what labor and delivery entailed. None of us could grow beyond 10 or twelve pounds had we stayed inside, thank God we were able to find a way to leave our comfort zone, forced out of the warm safe environment of our mothers womb to a world that is sometimes terrifying and sometimes exhilarating sometimes successful sometimes a bloody failure, but life is all about experiencing both! so, don’t relegate yourself to what your comfortable, safe and familiar with – try on your potential, take a risk do something that sparks your interest and see what your made of for heaven’s sake.