Spring is here! We made it, again!
This winter was very slow and very quiet for me, which is what winter is for, so that’s fine. Like I mentioned in my essay about creative rest and wintertime, it’s good to take a rest, it’s good to have time to reflect, to let ideas come to you and grow. That doesn’t have to coincide with the seasons but for me, at least, it always does. This year, especially, because I was writing my essay about developing Style. I was looking back on all the art I’ve ever made, trying to write an artist’s statement, trying to reflect and see the bigger picture, trying to understand the higher level “Meaning” behind my art. Why do I make art? Why does it matter, why should you care? What kind of art do I like to make, what subjects, what mediums, and why?? What do I like, and why?
Existential crisis ensued. I’ve never understood why I make art or why I’m drawn to the things I’m drawn to, and then, under the microscope, I was too close to see anything.
However! I’ve had a breakthrough in my thinking that has opened up a world of possibilities for me and has me energetic and enthusiastic and creating art again. I’d like to mention that it’s easier to transition back into a creative peak if you don’t let yourself plunge too deep into a dormant valley. I always try to at least doodle in my sketchbook every day, I guess just so I don’t lose the muscle, and I don’t get discouraged when I have inspiration again but find I’m rusty with the pen.
Basically what happened is: I realized I don’t have to try to make up a reason, or a meaning, if I don’t have one. Every time I try to answer a question I don’t know the answer to, I find that while I’m not necessarily wrong, and I have been able to intellectualize a lot of my passions, interests, MOs, but that’s just it. This isn’t an intellectual endeavor to me, and it feels disingenuous. No, I don’t know why I draw. That actually makes it more exciting and interesting to me, makes it worth doing. Because some force is pushing my hand to draw, my mind to wander, but it’s unknowable. I think it must be the same force that pushes planets to form, life-forms to emerge. I think I’m exploring Creation and the nature of Creativity, and I have found no answers. I don’t know that I’m even looking for answers, I’m just looking to experience and to follow that Creative Force. Where do my drawings come from? Where do dreams come from?? Beats me. All I know is sometimes my hand starts drawing before my mind realizes it, and if I don’t draw I am not happy.
I guess I thought my art must be a finished thought, expressed physically. Art as a statement, or a confession. But really, I think my art is just a thought. I am exploring my own thoughts and feelings through the art. Nothing is a fully finished Statement, it’s all just explorations. I’m coming to understand more and more through each creation— and maybe one day when I’m more mature as an artist some of these ideas will have been fleshed out and I’ll be able to speak on them, but right now I’m just doing archaeology through art. And I think that’s how a lot of my favorite artists work, too, so I’m in good company.
Many artists famously hate to talk about the Meaning of their art— David Lynch, David Bowie, most expressionist painters; and I think it’s because these artists don’t set out to make art with a specific meaning. They let the art guide, let it be what it wants to be, ride the flow of Creation. Meaning may be revealed when you see the finished piece. You may be surprised what it means to you, in the end! And one of the fun things about art is that it may mean such different things to everybody. Artists who work this way usually are much more interested in the process. This is certainly what captivates me, and this idea ties together so many other ideas in my mind. My hand just starts drawing lines because it feels good to draw lines! Mark making is such an enjoyable experience, the joy of leaving marks on paper is all art is when we first experience it. Babies will fill whole pages up with just crayon scribbles because they get it— how great is it that the path of your hand can be recorded on paper, just by rubbing some of this crayon off on it! As I begin to engage more with full-body paints, that’s what’s attracting me to it, how satisfying laying down brush strokes feels. That’s why I like inking so much— every mark matters, is permanent; all ink drawings are perfect records of the process. And that’s why I don’t care for photo-realism! I understand and respect the feat of it, but I’m not interested in art that seems to hide the artist. I want to see the brushstrokes!
Anyway, now that I’ve freed myself from trying to assign meaning to everything, and allowed myself to let the process be my guiding light, I’ve been in a period of furious art-making and idea-cultivating. I feel like I have a direction to follow, but I don’t feel boxed in or limited. And I’m dreaming big! I’ve been working with a Grand Gallery Exhibition in mind. If I had unlimited resources, and time, and space, what would My Gallery show be? And I’m not just a gallery-showing fine-artist. In fact I think I was in one gallery ever. When I was ten. But I’m not limiting my Grand Gallery to fine art, so it doesn’t matter. In my gallery, I’ll be mixing illustration, graphic art, and fine art. Maybe I’ll frame original comic pages, just the ink. Maybe some of my zines will be laid out for you to take with you. Maybe I’ll rip out sketchbook pages and frame them. Maybe some of the paintings I’m working on now will hang up in the show! Maybe some of my animations can play on a loop on some cool old TVs I find. I’ll have big pieces and little tiny ones, and drawings and paintings and sculptures. I’d want it to feel like you’re walking into a museum for some alternate universe, some dream-world or something. And I’d host a live-drawing session at the opening! This big lofty goal has kept me really engaged and excited, and surprisingly, has taken a lot of pressure off of me. While it is a huge endeavor to work towards, I now feel like every little doodle I do is valid, and important, and worthwhile, because it may eventually become part of The Grand Gallery! And honestly, even if it doesn’t, in a way it all feeds into it in some way. And I see so many milestones ahead on the way to the Grand Gallery. Exploring new avenues of creation. Publishing short stories. Doing a whole animated short. Expanding on my portraiture and graphic art. So it’s all very exciting! And I’m finding myself understanding myself better the more I just Make More Art About It. Much more than I could ever get by analyzing and intellectualizing myself.
So! All this to say that I’m going to shift the focus of this newsletter. It won’t be “essays” about art-related topics so much as it will be updates on my art process! I’d like to just talk about what I’m working on each month, what I’ve been up to and how that inspired me, references and resources I’ve been using, that kind of thing. I think that’s what will actually be helpful to me, in learning how to write about my art— because as we have discovered, that’s what I’m more interested in talking about! For March I’ll keep it short, since this breakthrough just occurred in March, and I’ve already rambled enough about all that.
I have moved Grand Gallery work into my XL moleskine. I’ve been using personal sized notebooks in my gorgeous leather journal (that I made myself) which I will never stop using and which I take with me most times I leave home for more than a few hours. I’m really enjoying doing bigger drawings in a sketchbook. I think I needed the in-between, because the personal sketchbook is too small for a lot of things, but committing to doing A Piece on a big sheet of my fanciest paper is the only alternative. So having big pages that are still just for no-pressure sketching has been freeing.
I made a TINIER version of my personal-sized book, so it can fit in my pocket and I can always have some paper on me even if I’m just leaving for ten minutes. I find myself really actually using it, too! I’ve had ideas strike in the grocery store, in the middle of a movie at the theater, halfway through a walk, and actually wrote it down, and now I find the ideas come more often, and connect to each other. It’s like ideas are starting to trust me to do something with them, so they feel comfortable revealing themselves.
I’ve gone through my stacks of magazines and magazine cut-outs and started to organize them. I like to save images to use as references—of people, fashion, environments, color palettes/textures, and I’ve sort of organized them into those categories. Now I’ve been pulling them out to have up while I work!
I’ve got some character designs brewing! The girl and her Companion just kind of happened, and I find myself drawing them over and over again. Same with the Tiger Queen. I don’t have much of a story for them yet, but I’ve got some moods, some themes that I feel fit them. And some environments! I think you’ll start to see more of this place with three small suns and a toxic black ocean (is it Earth years and years from now? An Earth-like planet somewhere in space? An alternate dimension somewhere in time? Who knows!!). These are the kinds of things that I’m really excited about developing and I’m really stoked to see developing ORGANICALLY, without any intellectual intervention on my end.
TEXTURES are something I’m really trying to explore. I like the idea of loose, sketched, lineart, that is then filled in with lots of rich textures. Maybe that’s achieved with different layers of paints, or inking in different patterns, we’ll see. But I’ve been feeling inspired by a lot of textiles from fashion magazines, and rugs and bedding from interior design magazines, and I happened upon this book of rugs at the antique store! I’ve been using it for inspo, for instance with this piece I did of my Queen character. I’ve been really into gathering BOOKS (Physical! Print!) to use for reference, and taking more pictures myself, and getting off Pinterest as my main source of reference.
I’ve found since distancing myself from digital art a little bit that it’s really good for me to have my art up and around. Seeing it all the time has been keeping me grounded and focused, and I think is helping to connect disjointed ideas. That’s one of the major perks of working traditionally. On my iPad it’s so easy for files to get lost and forgotten. And it feels so satisfying to finish a piece and instantly have it in your hands, a tactile, 3 dimensional thing that you made! When I order prints of a digital piece, I get close to that feeling, but it’s not quite the same… and besides, I’ve never been able to afford to print much of my work. Plus it feels poignant or important in some way, to get traditional, in the AI Takeover Era. Certainly the charm of the handmade has become more appealing. I do still try to emulate that with my digital work, not abusing the infinite undo button, letting my hand show itself… but there just really is something to be said for PAPER. Canvas! Holding something, seeing the light hit at different angles, all that.
That’s all for now! Check back in next month!
