2023 did not define me

No. 23

It’s easy to fall into the expectations trap as an artist. Making things for an audience, no matter how small, is very different from just making things. When something works - you want to do more of that thing. But sometimes, that thing, whatever it is, isn’t what you should be making.

Do you make it anyways - to satisfy an audience?

I’ve spent the break reading The Creative Act: A Way of Being. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is a devotional for artists - expressing in words core Truths of art making I have felt but could not articulate.

I started trying to take notes, but the book is so dense I found it nearly impossible. Then on page 20 the author writes:

”If something strikes me as interesting or beautiful, first I live that experience. Only afterward might I attempt to understand it.”

I stopped taking notes. I am living this experience. My mind is on fire.

I’ve been making zines over the past week or so. I’m not sure what to do with them yet but I love the low risk functional nature of them. One sheet of paper, six interior pages, a back and a cover. It’s not a lot of space to get a point across but the limitations create a sort of alchemy that somehow adds up to more than the sum of its parts.

It’s been a rewarding exercise that I think I’m going to continue for a bit.

Talk soon. Enjoy the journey.

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The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.
~ Robert Henri

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