“Something I’d like to point out is how important it is for any artist, designer, photographer, writer to find our own voice, our own way of doing things, to find ourselves in our work. It is difficult to focus on what we want to do when out there is a vast ocean of inspiration, and I enjoy watching other artists’ work too, but I think it is very important to stop looking outside and start searching inside when it comes to creating our work. I believe this is priority, it’s a way of respecting others as well as respecting ourselves.”
Romina Bacci via pia jane bijkerk
This post has me thinking a lot about who I am as an artist. Truth is, I haven't a clue really. I feel like I've been treading water for the years it's been now since I donned the title. Thats a bad habit of mine. Waiting.
Seems I use to think I was pretty deep. I suppose that's a common dilution of youth. Or, maybe it's a common reality. Maybe we are all abysses as young adults. It's just that when we come up for air we tend to linger near the surface, so intoxicating is the allure of all those shiny land loving things, like careers, marriage, babies.
I'd not mistake myself for much of a spelunker now. I'm thoughtful, sure. But I don't know that I'm all that profound. I"m certainly no the dare devil, carefully trained, out for pirates treasure kind of diver I'd have to be to be a serious artist. I'd like to be. Then again, diving those depths could drive a mind to liquid instead of the thicker matter we usually count on.
There's been so much healing and acclimating to "normalcy" since I met my husband that embracing my more eccentric side has seemed, well, counterproductive. But I miss it too... or I miss the idea, the fantastical idea, that I was ever able to dive in waters that scare the hell out of me, that were heavily infested with the most painful of jellyfish stings, that were so dark that not only were you in danger of loosing your way, but your mind as well.
I don't often connect what is deeply personal to me with my work. I've tried. I can't, it seems.
Without that I can make pretty pictures, but I can't make images of what lay deep in the sea.
Additional Thought: But I will die trying.
1 comment:
I find I am now wanting to listen more closely to my work, my art, so that I can hear what it is telling me.
Art is. And that's a place to start.
"I"m certainly not the dare devil, carefully trained, out for pirates treasure kind of diver I'd have to be to be a serious artist."
That's one way to say "artist". Is it the only way?
Wonderful to read your thoughts this cool late summer morning.
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