Episode 38 - Intermission
Hello everyone! It’s been a while. I hope you and your families are staying safe.
Before I get back to the podcast and the episode schedule, I wanted to chat briefly about my break as I imagine a lot of people have been feeling the same way.
At some point I felt like I lost my personal direction in the arts, and therefore, my curiosity in the arts disappeared. What’s been directing my energy and flow of the interviews has been genuine interest so the desire to learn in some ways was gone. And I truly can’t say if this was all due to COVID changing our lives or if this would happen regardless of the pandemic.
I feel pretty lucky to have the opportunity to talk and learn from the amazing people I get to have on the show, and I also feel lucky that I did not have to put an obligation on myself to constantly produce new episodes.
There seems to be an analogy to art-making here and a direct link to how I felt at the moment about where my personal work was heading. I believe there’s value in continuing to produce work even if you don’t feel like it, especially when we are placed into a professional environment. Often, to get through a block, all it may take is to force wonder and continue to search, learn, and create. I often pride myself on being able to look at a task from a different angle and find vigor to keep going, and yet I was lost and not particularly motivated. There’s gotta be truth to the fact that maybe I didn’t take my own advice here but also that there’s value in taking time off and being lost. Or so I am told.
At some point I saw no direction in the fine arts for me to pursue, no goal to chase, and knowing that I am really goal driven, this meant trouble. Furthermore, I needed to focus on my professional work and go on a mission of tackling something that felt really difficult in order to stay out of my comfort zone. As I began working on a personal short film, the instant gratification type of pace of artmaking was gone and it actually took some time to rewire my brain. Later on, I would sit down to create traditional work, especially if it was meant to get to a higher level of finish, I would find myself asking what is the purpose. I didn’t see it going anywhere and I saw many other possible ways to practice. Perhaps, I had blinders on and I had limited insight but it also rang true to me that it was time for a change, which often is so difficult to admit to oneself. Somehow the idea of making paintings just to put them into storage didn’t appeal anymore. At some point, many of us had a wonder about image-making when we simply created without weighing down the process with too many thoughts and meanings, and for me that productive time was in the past. The value of meaning, reason, and motivation play a bigger role now and I often find this can become counter-productive to producing work. These days I am trying to regain that simple approach to art and get back to creating images. I am sure if I listen back to some of my previous statements on the podcast, I would be contradicting myself now, but that is just a sign that I continue to grow and to change. I have put a lot of weight on what it means to do one or another type of work, especially when there’s not enough time to be efficient at numerous fields, but I should have asked myself why I worried so much about it. There are so many ways to approach art-making and what works best for one at a given point in their life.
At the same time while being in a rut, I found many good podcasts that did this kind of interviews in really great ways and for some time I doubted myself. Of course, in reality the conversations really are about the guests’ paths, experiences and points of view so as long as I wouldn’t get in the way, there’s limitless value to be gained. I realize it’s as if I said since other people make art really well, I shouldn’t do it. A DUH moment on my side here but somehow the brain wonders. I am passionate about having some hand in giving insight into others’ work lives and challenges, so I felt motivated to keep going.
I am happy to say I am coming out of being lost, I see the value of practicing traditional work and the lessons that are brought along with crafting one-of-a-kind pieces that you can’t find anywhere else. I see the value in digital art and how it can bring new ways of visualizing as well enhance my life through further career opportunities. When we are talking about 40+ hours a day at a job, sometimes - if not more often - it needs to be priority number one. If you have listened to this podcast before, you probably know already about my inner desire to keep trying every type of style and medium. I have talked to so many artists that feel the same way so to bring it back to the beginning of this monologue, maybe it is the amount of decisions and the lack of time that threw me into the flurry of options, and what it took is some time away from it to show me what I value. Or a part of what I value. Although it certainly is not that simple and I continue to question my decisions, it is calming to remind myself that I do not need to choose a major to be stuck with, life is a journey and unexpected opportunities and directions can lead to incredible new chapters in life.
The reason I am sharing this is to be more honest about these feelings, despite the fact that they are not fun to talk about. I still question if there’s value to sharing it. Sometimes the social media can be too picture-perfect and I have been glad to see more realistic conversations happening online, and artists being forthcoming about their challenges. I know I am not breaking any ground here or sharing anything new, as many people have these experiences but I hope that this could be useful to someone to know that we often go through this kind of mental turmoil.
If you want to leave your thoughts, instagram is probably the best way to go. I haven’t found youtube to be as important as Spotify or Itunes have been in this medium. Let me know if you feel otherwise.
I already have a number of great guests booked and I look forward to speaking more about the art world, especially as some aspects of it seem to be shifting right in front of our eyes.
That's enough of me, thanks again for listening! I appreciate your kind words, and I’ll speak with you soon.