i keep reblogging that bit from northern exposure, "It's not the thing you fling, it's the fling itself" because i keep getting down about not having my art ducks all in a row yet and that's fine because have you ever looked at ducklings trailing after their mother? they're hardly ever in a row, more like a collective gaggle
like i try to draw cartoony- or at least copy other cartoony styles- but at the end of the day when i want to stylize figures i just mash together sumerian sculpture with a life time of attempting art nouveau- which isn't that bad i guess- at least what i make is distinct and has a voice- and i'm getting better at using shapes to make caricatures- it just hasn't come naturally yet. which makes me wonder why i think it should. what imagined row of ducklings i'm trying to be a part of- am I still thinking that the ultimate goal is Cal-Arts when i so clearly have other things i want to do? i should just gaggle along in my own downy mush pile to whatever nest i get to i suppose and in the end i'll be an adult duck anyway.
"I've been here now for some days, groping my way along, trying to realize my vision here. I started concentrating so hard on my vision that I lost sight. I've come to find out that it's not the vision- it's not the vision at all. It's the groping. It's the groping, it's the yearning, it's the moving forward. I was so fixated on that flying cow that when Ed told me Monty Python already painted that picture, I thought I was through. I had to let go of that cow so I could see all the other possibilities [. . .] I think Kierkegaard said it oh so well, "The self is only that which it's in the process of becoming." Art? Same thing. [. . .] The thing I learned folks, and this is absolutely key: It's not the thing you fling. It's the fling itself."
art is progress and as long as i keep participating in that progress i'm getting somewhere at least