This is a bad time to be working. That being because its 4:42 A.M., my brain is dead, and I have a splitting headache. But lately I've been considering to myself what is art and what does it mean, especially while I attempt to not go completely insane at this school. I've gotten used to making "art" and "work" for people other than myself. That's not the problem. The problem is that I don't know how to make art for me anymore. When I "try" to do that, I lose something and I don't even like the work anymore. All of the ideas I have in my head about personal artwork either stay in the womb or I hate them and don't think I can create them. I'm convinced that until I get the hell out of here, in just a week or so, I will never be able to accept my attempts to make my own work. Granted, soon after I will be transplanted into another institution.
I look at so many "modern" and "postmodern" artists and I envy them to no end. They have these personas, do what they "love," and make it look so damn easy. Pollack, Warhol, Duchamp - they didn't even have to try that hard to produce. I feel like a fool that I can't produce with any sense of ability or abundance. I don't even know what I want in art anymore. I know what I want my career to be and to prepare for it. But in another way I can't but feeling I'm going to be up at times like this with these same conditions and emotional baggage for the rest of my life.
I also feel like no one is listening. How do you get people to listen? For me its been a struggle my whole life. I have this whole notion that people need to know me or see my work. But shouldn't I just be creating for myself? Isn't that selfish? I keep getting caught between that. I am an artist. I guess. I don't feel like it now. This inescapable anxiety I have, the stress headache, the insomnia. Does this make it ok?
I love art. I love looking at it, absorbing it, understanding it, and feeling it. I can't get past myself when I look at great art. I have a Deviantart account, for example. I am frightened to put up work because there is so much good stuff (and horrible stuff too) there and I am scared that everyone would put me down and shit on my crappy technique, composition, etc. I have put up work before and one time I ended up having an argument with someone about a damn figure study. (They didn't aesthetically like the model's body (well, my honest portrayal of it) and said it was too girly. I snapped at them for not knowing what real men look like. Great, I'm now an officially snobby, defensive bitch.) Another reason I'm afraid is that I don't have that much to show for anyway. I feel like a failure and like a fake, masquerading as an artist, but in fact not possessing any artistic talent whatsoever.
But do I have to have talent to make work? So much of what I see now isn't talent, but good ideas or bad ideas that become marketable or valuable. Do I have to sell myself now, even though I'm still just a student. Do I have to make something new, strange, and unheard of to become valid? God, I don't even know anymore.
(I'd love to upload an image, but this morning its not really letting me :( )
No comments:
Post a Comment