I’ve been thinking about my life drawing practice lately. I always keep an arrangement of my best works displayed on a ‘gallery wall’ at my place, a habit I find both enjoyable and aesthetically pleasing. I can often have the same ones posted for months, but when its time, I think nothing of replacing them with fresh pieces. I do this now without so much a thought or intention, its just, what I do.
This way of thinking may be beneficial for me to consider in terms of maintaining my blog. The intersection of the physical and digital art spaces can be a murky for me at the best of times, I feel I have equal footing in both, yet cannot stay focussed long enough in one to achieve…. more. It’s always an oscillation between worlds.
On one hand, I would love to get a real studio and spend more time taking the lucky sketches that ‘make the wall’, and redraw them. Scale them up, render them on a more rich substrate, complete the compositions that are lying in each one. I have done this a couple of times with great satisfaction and backlog in my head of art that needs to be made. In some cases I have identified who it will be made for. This is the life of the traditional fine artist that is in me. The space is key here, its impossible to do this work out of my small apt. I can make it work in short bursts but inevitably I’m far too prone to procrastination and distraction, usually from a computer.
On another plane altogether is the one I am in now, the digital. The world of my many affiliated organizations, networks, and devices. The world of technology. I participate heavily in the internet, all the usual suspects. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Linked, Tumblr, Flickr. Vimeo, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Cloudcloud… multiple identities, multiple accounts. Lots and lots of typing, clicking and staring at screens. Maybe I’ve reached a saturation point with how much I can keep up with, but I have to say its been bringing me down!
I think its a thing right now because no sooner had I come this realization, and I stumbled upon a Benjamen Walkers ‘Dislike club’ series (couldn’t live without my podcasts!) which speaks directly to this issue.
… technology is interested in you in this world right you can’t get away from technology it’s the sea we’re all swimming in it’s like everything we do from you know our love lives to our jobs to our filmmaking is all mediated through the Internet right now. ~Astra Taylor
Not only did I find a common feeling across many of the stories, but also some hopeful inspiration that art and rich meaning can still be created on the internet. I cannot discount the connections, insights and delights the social internet plays in my life, but thinking about putting more energy here, I need to make sure it’s going in the right place, and in the right form. This blog will once again be the focal point. I will post up new bits of art, sketches, ideas on this online ‘gallery wall’, taking many fractured bits, giving them a frame for a time.