Photographs and Reflections about Art
I haven't really been creating recently for whatever reasons, and I felt the need to remedy that by reading some creativity books for myself and my own motivation. It isn't easy to retain my consistency anyways as my motivation in and of itself is ever so fluctuating (as much as I don't want to acknowledge the fact that my actions are highly contingent upon motivation), so I thought to myself that perhaps reading further, and understanding why this happens to me and what the root cause of this may help me put myself right back on my feet.
And truly it did.
Here are a few photographs that I took a couple film rolls back, with some of the insights I've come to realise from my current readings.
As someone who experiences (or suffers with, if I may bravely say) perfectionism, I constantly fight against my urge to start only when I have figured out everything. It is to no one's surprise that doing so deprives oneself of the genuine experience of the process. It's okay not to know everything, or anything at all. After all, the process of knowing and figuring it out is part of the creative process I realise I must enjoy. It is, to be honest, quite mentally agonising to catch myself constantly pre-thinking, preparing mentally. I am in most cases too cerebral with my art, and that I recognise as something I must change. Art isn't supposed to be too cerebral. At the end of the day, the unknown bears fruit of ideas that aren't forced, are more natural.
Boxing myself into one style can bring more harm to myself as an artist than good. In today's day and age, social media exacerbates an artist's need to have a niche, to be good at something specific. If you want to thrive in social media, perhaps you need to follow exactly that. But as someone who doesn't revolve their art around social media, I should feel more free to be open and try new, more things. There's no need for me to be scared of trying, and making mistakes, as it is part of the creative process every artist must experience. I have to be more comfortable at being curious. I am, but it's not enough.
Art can be about making an audience feel what the artist wants them to feel, but it isn't solely about that. Art, in most cases, is merely letting yourself be the channel of a feeling--something you feel right now, or you don't necessarily feel currently, but can be a feeling you felt years before, a feeling you think you're about to feel in the near future, what you think a friend feels like, what you think your pet feels right now. It doesn't have to be defined by you entirely. But you have to let yourself be the conduit of whatever that feeling is. Art doesn't discriminate, whatever feeling is valid; love, anger, sadness. Even uncertainty, emptiness, and nothingness can be expressed. My art is the result, these feelings are the message, and myself is a mere channel, not a decision-maker, to materialise whatever wants to be expressed. As what Julia Cameron says, the creative process is a process of surrender, not control.
Just create, Wolfe. Just do.
Readings that inspired this post:
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
The Art of Creating by Joseph Nguyen
Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland