questioning

As much as this blog will have a purpose or mission it is for me to reflect on my artwork, my methodology, and to a lesser extent my general opinions on art. I am writing it with the idea that there is an audience, and if you’re out there reading this (and hopefully enjoying it) then great. Art and my artwork is something I am fairly capable of being talkative about, but I’m still not extrovert and so perhaps this will allow some interested person to understand me or my intentions more fully.

More likely, however, the act of composing my thoughts will be the reward in and of itself. I was recently asked a number of questions about my intentions and methodology and I was not fully able to explain or defend my choices. Now I am not one of those people who doesn’t want to understand the process of my imagination or my art, and I don’t think that digging too deep will destroy my capabilities. Rather my lack of self-reflection has been more due to my perception of myself as a hobby painter.

I view writing as my main calling and art as a less stressful creative outlet. I have always had a lot less emotional issues with art, there is something about the craft aspect of it, that there is a more explicit process and science to it, that allows me to do it more easily (i.e. I don’t have to be “in the mood”) and also allows me to do it for longer stretches of time. To some extent the lack of stress could be related to it not being my proclaimed profession. Though so far the increased emphasis that I’ve put on painting in my life hasn’t added any stress to the act, so yea me. I think that main reason that painting is easier and more pleasurable for me is that my paintings have no message. I paint them with the aim of creating something pleasant or beautiful, not with anything didactic in mind, nor for the last few years even really a subject/object in mind. So since I just want them to be nice things the journey of making them is generally enjoyable, not frustrated by trying to achieve something specific.

However, returning to my point about what this blog will be, just singing lalala as I skip through the painting process is fine to the extent that it gets paintings finished, but it would be more useful if I had some goals and some guidelines for myself. Presumably if I question a number of the things that I do, why I do them, why I like what I like, et cetera it could also result in better paintings. So herein will be that exploration.

There will be contradictory statements, bizarre statements, esoteric references, convoluted run-on sentences, and self deprecations, but hopefully it will be amusing as well. Perhaps neurotic haha and oh what a weird and pitiful man haha, but some haha none the less.