The ramblings of a struggling artist - 21 days into Spring.

I have a desire to break reality. But the visuals I dream up and write about are SO DANG HARD to piece together. I find myself scouring reference online only to be disappointed in what I can realistically create with the imagery available.

I really want the creation process to be my own imaginative composition, but come about in a more natural way. In a way that seems integrated and inspired by my own place and experience, but also tapping into the dream world I love to spend time in.

Historical painters didn’t have the internet. They had other paintings, literary teachings, and what they could see in front of their eyes. So why not look to the past and learn from artists that have come before me. I like thinking about that as my starting point - letting old stories be the vehicle that drives the work through an experimental process.

Taking walks alongside the stories and imaginations of my human ancestors while at the same time containing my existence here now inside of the act of creation - whether that be painting or creating and collecting form - autobiographical fossils.

Today I sculpted three mediocre frogs. The first was alright, the second was made just from thin strings of clay, and the third used a mixture of both techniques that I tried. It’s really satisfying playing with different modes of making. In the book I’m reading now about the historical timeline of pictorial space, it talks about how artists from different time eras stumbled upon new revelations and modes of building up the surface of a work and how perspective, color theory, pattern etc affect the psychological read and time spent with an artwork.

Here are the pieces from this week of creating - a mixture of from life, starting from story, and a slight breaking of reality.