bitch-slapped by my muse

I sometimes wonder how other artists do it.

Do they have an idea and then work till they have a product that matches the vision in their head?

I envy that.

It seems so often I have an idea, go to work it out, only to get smacked around by my Muse (masochistic bitch) till the final product is something quite a bit different that what I had initially envisioned.

I do what she tells me.
I'm her bitch.

(She also ignores me completely for long stretches of time.)

Just a thought I've had lately.

identity crisis

Bitter enemies; the commercial arts and the fine arts. In collage, it seemed the two departments couldn't be in the same room without hostilities breaking out. And I bounced from one to the other. Back and forth again, shifting my allegiances, both sides looked at me with suspicion and distrust.

I feel that pull now too. the dissonance, in my work.
And every time I encounter other artists work, from the both fine and the commercial fields, I experience an identity crisis; "oh, THAT's what I should do!"
Swinging back and forth.
I'll be like this, I'll be like that...

Influenced. It's what artists do. We are influenced by everything.
That's normal.

I need to keep it from becoming the halting choking disabling identity crisis.
MY work.
Influenced by a plethora of other styles/genres/every day objects and individuals...
absorbed, assimilated into MY style.
"Just be yourself!"

hahahahahahaha!!!!!.........