Post #2 - New Year's Eve 2024 update - Dec 31, 2024 - 11:45pm
It's been a wonderful end to the year. I quit a job I hated and went on vacation without a plan for what's next. I then scrambled to find work as my savings began to dry up. But despite all the stress and headaches, I miraculously found a job that I enjoy very much! In hindsight it was pretty dumb to quit like that. I will definitely be taking some time to financially recover from this, haha. But without the change I could not have ended up in the spot I'm at now, and what a great place to be!
The artistic spark had gone out for a while this past year. It tends to be cyclical with me, where I might spend 6 months making a lot of work, and then the next 6-12 months not doing any artwork at all. This past stretch of maybe 1.5 years has been artistically pretty dry. However, ever since I moved and started this new job my mind feels later and better able to consider the beauty around me. Experience, education, reflection, expression. Stages of processing one's life into art.
2 months ago, a feeling of curiosity and excitement about music began to arise in me for the first time in years. My best friend and I share a deep love for music, and we started having deep conversations while passing the aux back and forth. This activity is probably my all-time favorite way to spend time with a friend. It was through these conversations, via facetime & spotify/youtube shareplay, that the seed of musical excitement was re-sown in my heart. I began listening to new music regularly again, always on the hunt for interesting sounds and vibes to curate into vignettes to share with my dear friend. He did the same in return and my love and respect for him both as an individual and a musician has grown as a result. We actually got to meet up for the first time in a while and it was a great time filled with great music.
Anyway, aside from listening to new music, I also began writing and creating new music again for the first time in ages! Bought a new keyboard and guitar loop pedal and went to work on...mostly crappy songs, but some really lovely ideas that I'd like to build on. Engaged in a fascinating conversation with my partner today where the realization came up that in songwriting and composition, I am actually world-building more than anything else, and I think that applies to all artforms for me. Both visually and musically I am simply letting a world emerge, and then refining the picture like a marble sculpting in finer and finer detail until finally the world I created comes in full clear view. Songs aren't about the lyrics necessarily, but rather the texture - the feelings, the vibes that they evoke and the settings these feelings place you in.
Anyway, gonna wrap up this meandering mess of a journal entry with some accomplishments!
Goals achieved from list on previous post:
I do have a lot of thoughts about what it means to be an artist and how we might exist in the world in 2025. What it means to be connected to the world. How we are supposed to exist when paradigms shift and new knowledge is learned. I don't have anything against LLM's or generative ai in the scope of visual image generation. In fact I think it is necessary. But I also cannot help but feel a sense of...not knowing the bigger picture...with regards to posting my artwork online. As I said, my output hasn't been much this year compared to, say, 2021-22, but I have made some work, and feel conflicted about posting it anywhere. It is work I enjoyed and feel proud of, yet I feel as if there lacks a greater vision in my work. A greater question being asked. Digging deeper is required to really uncover the right question to ask when I am creating, but I know that to truly get to some answers I must lean into the work and just make a ton of new stuff. Discipline, repitition, and education will get me over this wall in my development. I am willing to fight the good fight to make it happen. To tie things back to my good feelings about the end of the year, I think this will to fight is connected. I feel closer to the version of myself that I want to fight for.
Post #1 - A short intro - July 27, 2024
I've always known art would be an integral part of my life and my identity. Reflecting back on childhood, I never would have thought my relationship to art would take quite the path that it did, but that is just how life works I suppose.
While I've always enjoyed drawing and making comics and characters since childhood, it was really in my late 20's that a realization hit me - people actually create characters and environments for a living!
I am an avid D&D player and love building worlds through story and visual cues to immerse folks in fantastical and goofy adventures. In keeping with this, I tend to prefer drawing and painting environments, and they tend to lean toward fantasy and cyberpunk-y scifi themes.
However, I am currently brushing up on my 3D skills and plan to spend more time developing that skillset.
Some goals for the end of the year: