peripherality

1/23/24 - thoughts on artistic identity

My relationship to creating art has been a lifelong, everchanging thing. As a child, it was a way to connect with my dad. A scientific illustrator with a style as precise and mathematical as his wit. I learned to make Carolina wrens out of small clustered points. What I really wanted to draw was people, though. My teachers were family, friends, classmates, and strangers. I learned how tall a forehead should be, and the infinite shapes that hands can take, and the way that a body looks when it is not my own. Faces are as varied as identity. I still haven't gotten tired of drawing them.

Early on in grade school, I was dubbed "the artist" by teachers and peers. I thought it was wonderful, to have an identity so solid and true. Where others were unsure of their purpose, I knew it, and I loved it. I almost didn't notice the way that label changed me, except for the way my chest would tighten sometimes. My relationship to art was not just my own anymore. There was a pressure, an invisible presence over my shoulder, it's shadow falling onto my sketchbook. I felt the skill of others weighing against my own. I became perpetually unsatisfied with my work.

Out of necessity to create out from under the eyes of my peripheral self-imposed judge, I turned to other hobbies. I picked up guitar. My friends and I would cover our favorite songs during lunch. We taught eachother chords and strumming patterns with no thought of why other than it was fun, and it was a connection. Later, in college I would play guitar for a band that survived only long enough to play a single house show. I can't think of a single project that was more influential to rebuilding my confidence.

I would rather be known as someone who makes art, rather than an artist. The word implies that only a certain kind of person is allowed to create. To be worthy of the title you must have some innate quality (talent), or otherwise work incessantly until you can mimic such a quality. I sometimes feel like I have betrayed the younger version of me, or that the label of artist was wasted on me. I hope that by de-mystifying the artist persona, I can begin to heal my relationship to art and my perception of my own self-worth. An artist is anyone who has the courage to create something. They may be unskilled, and in fact always begins unskilled, and may continue to use unsophisticated techniques throughout their artistic journey. I have begun to realize that nearly all of my favorite TV shows, music, prints, paintings, are unpolished, unfinished or otherwise messy. Why can I not extend this same grace to my own work?

The Neoweb movement and experimental film communities have both been sanctuaries to heal my relationship with art for remarkably similar reasons. There is a lawlessness embedded into the learning process, a need to explore which drives the artists in them. DIY alternatives to mainstream techniques and resources are shared freely between people like playground rumors. They breathe a new life into mediums which have been largely corporatized and homogenized.

I created this website as a project to incorporate my love for both of these mediums, along with a bit of my archival work. I'm really excited to continue to add elements to this website, although I'm not sure what the time frame will be like. Thanks for reading my first blog entry :].