Welcome to a new year, one which I hope is much better than the last. I’ve been away on a bit of a break, regrouping for this upcoming year, experimenting with new ideas and reevaluating some current practices. As of the 21st of January, I can say I’ve officially been keeping this blog going for five years now, which I would say is a considerable milestone since it takes a good amount of focus and effort to keep something going for that long or longer. So I’m happy to say “Yay, Happy Blogversary” to me. But with that milestone I’ve also come to the difficult decision to bring this blog to an end. I have to say it’s been fun sharing my artistic journey and meeting new people along the way but honestly, I’ve been feeling stretched pretty thin over the last year with trying to keep content flowing for this blog, as well as all my social media accounts and my newsletter, then also trying to find time to create art, make journals, keep my online art store updated with new work as well as still take care of my offline life. So I gave all of this some serious thought during my break and decided that something had to go and it turned out to be this blog. I figure the time and energy I’ve been putting into blogging could be transferred into the newsletter I’ve been writing for three years now, which honestly I find more enjoyable in writing since I have no algorithms to be concerned about, I’m not as constrained by the format of the platform and it feels more personal. I hope that those of you who have been with me all this time can understand, especially for those who regularly chit chat with me on my posts. This will be the last and final post that I will make for Carve & Draw. I will leave up for a while for those who want to look through some of my older posts to see my progression of work. But if you still want follow my work please take the time to sign up for my newsletter at the link above. I send out this newsletter 1-2x a month with updates on my latest art work, my works in progress, experiments, current sales, discounts and this year I’m adding in content that will only be available to those who have sign up. Signing up is free, you can unsubscribe at any time and I don’t spam or give out your email address. And you can even email me directly if you have something on your mind. Other than that I want to say thank you for sticking with me through these years. I’ve enjoyed and learned a number of things in the conversations in the comment section. I’ve really appreciated the interest that many of you have shown for my work and it’s been nice meeting new people who enjoy drawing as much as I do. I hope that we can continue our conversations over in my newsletter. Looking forward to seeing you there. Sincerely, Q. 🙂
A few days ago a fellow artist sent me a message on Instagram about a post he had saw that he thought I might be curious to see. In the message was a video clip of a person creating a drawing with an electric stippling pen. I don’t know if anyone has seen these pens (watch video below if you’re curious) but basically they’re an electric charged pen with a nib that rapidly goes up and down while releasing ink onto your drawing surface much in the same way you would use a regular pen in traditional stippling. It looks like a pretty cool, convenient and time saving art tool. But after watching the video, I was reminded of an MIT article that I read about teaching machines how to make art and I couldn’t help but wonder, exactly when and where do we draw the line between convenience and technology and express of the human spirit? As I thought about it more I couldn’t help but feel that the electric stippling pen was like cheating a bit artistically. To me, it’s akin to you grandma baking buttermilk biscuits from scratch compared to popping open a can of Pillsbury. Okay, maybe that’s comparing apples to oranges, anyways Pillsbury’s Grands are good as hell but I digress. At least with the electric pen, you’re still controlling the movement of the pen, so it’s not like it’s creating a drawing all by itself and you’re also still employing your own imagination to the artwork. But maybe it’s just me that’s haunted by this nagging, creepy feeling that gadgets and machines are taking over our lives and that in the process we’re losing something. What that something is, I can’t really put my finger on it but I’m sure two or three decades from now we’ll start to see reports and research papers coming out pinpointing what it is but it will be too late to correct the course.
Art has always been a form of human expression, so if we’re striving to teach machines how to be creative and make art, something that was once solely a human endeavor, can we still say that it’s art? When you take the humanness out of the equation of creativity is it still creativity or is it just an algorithm mimicking human creativity?
Needless to say, you won’t see me drawing with an electric stippling pen partly because I’m a traditionalist in that respect but also because stippling is my form of meditation that allows my mind and soul to slow down, which in this data driven, high tech, high speed, constantly connected, modern life we’re living, slowing down is something the human spirit sorely needs . And I don’t want some gadget taking that away from me.
For some time now I’ve had this bag of beads just sitting on my shelf collecting dust and taking up space. I can’t recall how I obtained this bag of beads, all I know is that it was there and so, I figured I should probably do something with them. Departing from my usual activities to unwind, (listening to music or watching Netflix), I took the bag of beads off the shelf, sat in the middle of my floor and spent the next five hours beading. I had nothing particular in mind but with a few internet searches and some color coordination, I pulled together a few designs that were to my liking. It was nice to just sit and create something without being concerned about profit or productivity. Oddly enough, my husband popped his head into my room, saw what I was making, thought they were cool and reflexively asked, “Are you selling those?” (He asks this whenever I make something.) “No. That hadn’t crossed my mind.” I replied. “You should.” he responded before disappearing back into the hall while closing the door behind him. I thought about for a minute, maybe I should but after finishing the six pieces I created, I realized that deep down I just wanted to create something for myself for a change, something that I had no intentions on selling. Creativity doesn’t always have to offered to the gods of profit.
Sometimes you have those moments where your mind wanders and you look back over your life and you ask yourself, “If I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, what would I do differently?” It’s one of those questions that many people are sure to ask themselves, I know I have. But for me that wondering would be in a more general sense where I always concluded that I wouldn’t do anything differently. In comparison to where I started from, I feel my life has turned out pretty okay. It could use some improvements in some ways but according to statistics and social scientists, my life should have turned out far worse. So I don’t regret how things have panned out so far. But then I got to thinking, is there anything I would do differently as an artist? And that’s when I started to feel some pangs of regret. While I’m proud of how far I’ve come, I can’t help but think at times how much further I could possibly be if I had of done a few things differently. Here are five things, that if I had a time machine, I would go back and do differently.
1. Own being an artist early on. In all honesty, I wasn’t too proud of having a creative spirit. I had sensed from the environment around me that being an artist didn’t have the same prestige in the community as being a principal, a social worker, teacher or foreman. I mean, people thought it was “cute” that I could draw but it wasn’t something that anyone encouraged me to pursue or praised me for. Even when I confided in a teacher that I was thinking about going to art school, I was immediately forewarned not to go and instead encouraged to go to a university with a diverse curriculum. So, I started off my academic career as a psychology major at the local community college only to later change it to Fine Arts, which required me to put in three years to obtain an Associates degree.
2. Take a few creative writing classes. I’ve always wanted to write and illustrate my own stories. Actually I wrote a 50 page short story back when I was 14 years old that I still have ’til this day. Since then I’ve only written two more that I’ve kept to myself. But once in a while I’ll do a drawing based off of a story that I’ve kept in my head. I’ve always imagined my art being coupled with stories or poetry and sometimes even songs. But to write and to draw, especially with the type of drawing that I do, seems to be a tall order. The time it would take to write the story and write it well along with the time it would take to do the drawing sounds exhausting. And with technology seemly shortening my attention span, I’m not sure if it would even be worth the effort. There is this thing called “Flash Fiction” that’s known for it’s brevity. I’ve entertained getting into that from of writing but it’s only a thought. Who knows, maybe I’ll find some way to weave writing into my art in the future.
3. Stayed in a smaller city. I moved from a small town to a big college city and I have to say getting my foot into the art scene here is much more challenging compared to when I was staying in a small town. In the town I was living in it was easier for me to develop a personal relationship with people. The manager at the local gallery was approachable and I could talk to her without having to make a pitch or bring a portfolio just to get her attention. Yearly there was a local art fair. Applications were $25 and a table was $50. But I was young and thought a bigger city was the place to be. So I didn’t invest too much energy into trying to get known as a local artist since I was going off to a university after I finished community college. To my surprise the art scene where I live now is nationally known. People from all over the country come to the yearly art fair and for a local artist just to have a table can run you up to $1500 but first you have to serve on the art jury for a year before you can get your own table.
4. Don’t underestimate the value of a community college education. Everything I learned that has been useful to me ’til this day, I learned at community college. From drawing, to web coding and graphic design. It was practical, useful and industry based. When I transferred to university, everything became based not on practicality but theory. Even the art classes. Out of my five years there and changing majors three times, the only courses I took that are still useful to me ’til this day were Economic Botany and Traditional Cartography. Looking back I feel that much of university education is more hype than anything else. So don’t look down on community college. I’m glad I attended both and was able to experience the difference. Don’t get me wrong, going to university was great for the experience and networking but looking back I probably could have done just fine without it and not have the debt I acquired. (I was able to pay for community college with my part-time job)
5. Invest in myself. Some people seem to have this unwavering belief in themselves and what they are doing. Me on the other had, I’v always had a tendency to second guessed myself and because of that I always put more value on the opinion of others rather than upon my own hopes and dreams. I always assumed everyone else knew better than me what was the best course for me. So for some time I followed the status quo until I found out the hard way that there’s no guaranteed security in the status quo just as much as there’s no security in carving out your own path in life. It’s eye opening when all that you thought was secure gets pulled out from under you due to corporate down sizing. In the process I’ve gradually learned how to live with uncertainty and developed more confidence in my ability to handle things.
So those are the five things I would do differently as an artist if I could go back in time. How about you? What are some things you would do differently as an artist or creative if you had a time machine?
Carve & Draw 