so i’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the pure and simple idea of physically making and producing objects. it sounds like an elementary notion, but I’ve only really discovered recently that a large part of why I often find myself feeling down on myself or discouraged about my level of “success” or self-worth is often connected to the level of productivity in manifesting physical objects. I would call it “making art”, but it’s not even that necessarily. I’m talking cookies and keychains even. I think sometimes I just need to produce physical objects to reconfirm my own existence or something. I know, crazy.
The main neurotic obsession usually manifests itself as “YOU ARENT MAKING GOOD ART. YOU ARENT EVEN MAKING ANY ART. WHY HAVENT YOU DRAWN? WHY HAVENT YOU TAKEN YOUR CAMERA OUT?” – which, let’s be real, is only going to push the feeling of being blocked or in a rut even further, because the continual focus is always on quantity measured by quality. basically, I psych myself out of working half of the time because I’ve already decided it isn’t going well. Which is where making comes in as the ancestral relative- the cause and also the therapy. Because making cookies and making a good photograph can be easily linked into a basic relationship of knowledge/idea into process into execution. The only reason that art takes up the main portion of my judgment of myself is I deem my art as a more important and accurate way to judge my self-satisfaction than my cookies. But sometimes it’s good to get back to the root of things, instead of obsess about the big picture. And that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do lately.
So I’ve been taking a break from my “fine art photography” and getting back to the good basics: learning new materials, putting my hands to good use, and enjoying some of the more elementary and less ‘serious’ forms of making. This really has included an awful lot of baking lately, a ton of Christmas crafts, some drawing, the pottery wheel (my first cereal bowl up top!), and soon to be woodworking tomorrow. So yeah, just a few thoughts when you’re getting a little crazy and low. Or maybe I’m just trying to cope with the fact that I’m only 23 and enjoy a good few hours cutting out paper to make gift tags.
