In process/ This has been a spiel, hasn't it.

Recently, I've stopped timestamping all of the stuff I do in my sketchbook/journals and I've found that it has done wonders to my level of motivation. I've stopped worrying about how many pages I'm using, stopped feeling like I need to document everything, and I just let loose. I guess I'm just trying to do as much as possible, because the more I do, statistically, the more I'll like. Also, trying to change the way I use my sketchbooks. I can recognise that I've focused heavily on my sketchbooks, treating them as the centrepiece of my work. Now, I'm trying to think of my sketchbooks as just that - spaces for experimentation and trials and idea creation. I want my process to become less linear and branch out into different formats, i.e., not to be so afraid to depart from the 2-d off-white A5 page of my moleskines. I'm going to buy oil paints tomorrow and pick up some scrap plywood from the USyd Architecture building. I even, quite viciously, deconstructed a Year 11 scultpure I had hanging around, salvaged the wire I used for it, and, quite viciously, sawed apart the balsa base it was on. #reuse #recycle

It may have been something I read, or it may have been my mum who said it, but I am very much a dabbler in that I try out all these different things, but I'm not 'specialised' in anything. I want the fragmented ways that I use all these different materials to come together somehow into some sort of 'style'. Then again, a 'style' only comes with time, experience and perseverance. A while ago, I was thinking about how Picasso and Mondrian both started off with very conservative subjects and compositions, but of course, they are both known for their heavily abstracted paintings. I look forward to the day when (hopefully) I can look back at the stuff I made in my late teens/ early twenties and be able to trace the progression of my work.

Personally, I love very abstract, postmodern works, such as Sol Lewitt's wall drawings. I think what's interesting about it is not so much about the end product than it is about the formulaic process of installing it, and the very manner of it Being there (directly on a gallery wall, site-specific, inevitably temporary). I also think that Anish Kapoor is a genius. Recommended viewing: Oracle (black void in sandstone), Void (blue bowl shape mounted on wall), When I am Pregnant. These three in particular made me question my visual perception, and heightened the senses outside the traditional five as I tried to decipher this object (or absence of object) and how it could physically be so. Delightfully unsettling.

I was going to write about how I don't want to force abstraction in my work, because I think it works best when it comes more spontaneously and conceptually. But since I went on a tangent about installation and sculptural art, I think would love to explore space (not the starry kind) in my work. I wish I had the means and the conceptual ability to create large-scale sculptures, but then again, this post is really beginning to flop right now so I should concede that I failed to plan it and now have nothing end it

Square one

This was in my drafts from 19th April, 2014. It's quite relevant to how I'm feeling now, and it seems like a good way to kick things back off here...

Quite obviously, it has been pretty much f u c k ing ages since this blog was in use. My interest in blogging quite simply faded in favour for the micro-blogging-one-touch convenience of tumblr, and for about two years, I truly thought my "proper blog"-ing days were over. "Proper blogging", by which I mean thinking and writing and trying to come up with my own visual material rather than quick, angsty rants and the occasional Original Thing That I Made amongst the reblogs of pretty pictures and punny paragraphs (alliterating - I'm probably trying too hard).

Coincidence or not, I sort of stopped using my DSLR after I came back from North America in August 2012 (the photos are up on this blog, but I might privatise the posts, new blogging era and all). Definitely saddening, but since then, I have focused more on pen/paint/paper arts than photography. A lot of this work is up here. And in the lead-up to reigniting (maybe - we'll see if I keep this up) my "proper blogging", I have reached the conclusion that I've hit a wall with my creativity. Maybe I have become more interested in certain genres of music, but with that, I have also hit a wall, and I'm finding myself disinterested in discovering and listening to new music, whether within the same genre or not.

Maybe I have kind of wasted two-ish years of my life comparing myself to other people and constantly doubting my creativity and I feel like I have become some sort of cliche. Maybe that is why I'm retreating from a few of the things I was really into; because I'm trying to find out what I really like, and what I am really like, without all the external influences, the desire for validation/approval from people I know. Or maybe I am just burnt out.

I need to stop thinking about the end product and Be more in the moment. Stop being so scared. Try something new. Persevere. So I guess that's the conclusion for this post which I more or less winged. I'll end with a quote that I saw on tumblr which really hit me when I first read it:

“I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.”

― Roald Dahl, My Uncle Oswald