Out of My Comfort Zone

For 17 years, my wrist has only moved "so far". In 1994, I was in a car accident, badly smashed the beejeetles out of my wrist, and when it healed, it solidified shattered pieces and set: I could move my wrist about 40 degrees. So last November, right before Thanksgiving, I chose to have surgery to fix it.

Three months, two casts, and a whole lotta pain later, it's moving. Better every day. But every single day, it wants to stop at the old spot. I have to work it, push it, and make new muscles to force it move the whole way -- the old ones atrophied a long time ago. And my torturist physical therapist keeps saying to me, "Go out of your comfort zone!"

In art, this is my comfort zone: 9" x 12" collage:

This large 24" x 30" painting is not!

I can fill book after book with collages -- and I do! But this painting business? It's hard! I just finished a 5-week e-class with the uber creative beauty Flora Bowley and it was a struggle going out of my comfort zone. I didn't like not knowing intuitively or otherwise, how to paint. I hated having to "trust" that it would all work itself out into what it was supposed to be. I can do that in my comfort zone, easily. But out of it? Wrist and art be darned. It's hard!