suddenly, just now, an idea came to me as to what sort of things i might be able to blog about. im currently high on marijuana, a state i've entered with varying levels of frequency throughout the past 8 years.... so i find that although my idea as to what i might post about is very clear and specific, i'm not sure how best to describe it. i feel hyper aware of how incapable i am of using language to accurately communicate my meaning when i'm stoned. so anyways i will try to outline what im thinking about since i don't know how to concisely explain it.
since the beginning of 2020 and especially after reality was altered on March 19, 2020 (in LA, CA), i've been making an effort to be intentional in noticing what visually appeals to me, collecting the imagery, and trying to discern common themes, trying to be more acutely aware of what i find interesting and why. i'll screenshot and save things that i see on twitter, instagram, and tumblr. i've collected screenshots of things that amuse me (not necessarily images) or otherwise pique my interest passively, with mostly minimal frequency throughout my past ~17 years online. (perhaps inspired originally by a phenomenon on neopets which was referred to as "screenies," where people would post screenshots of random things/events they encountered across the website, oftentimes with an original character drawn in, reacting to the thing). the previous posts on this blog (there arent many) are from these image stores i've built up.
i've been using the internet since 2002-2003, and not casually, either. i signed up for my own yahoo email when i was 10 and somehow my parents found out and spent what seemed like hours trying to figure out how to delete it. i was really into neopets, and via the message boards on neopets, i got really into text-based roleplaying, where you and a bunch of other people would interact as your original characters on the basis of some arbitrary premise (my favorites were gifted school roleplaying, gifted like x-men, not like academically). me and my friends (my REAL-LIFE friends! we'd hang out and go on neopets and message boards and surf the web together) were generally really into creating "original characters" and coming up with really long, complex back stories for them and drawing them. we learned HTML & CSS to alter codes for our neopets lookups and pet pages. once i figured out how the <img src=""> tag worked, i realized i needed a place to upload pictures on the web so that i could get the image urls i needed, which is how i found photobucket.
photobucket is probably the first website i signed up for (i believe i was 12) where i was able to collect all sorts of different images, my own drawings as well as other types of pictures i would find on other websites. i would save pictures to my computer then re-upload them to photobucket. my friends and i would also use photobucket to find pictures of anime drawings that we would rip off, and pictures of scene and emo boys (sometimes kissing !!). we'd print out other people's drawings that we liked and copy them. printing out people's drawings that i liked is probably the first time i "intentionally" began collecting inspiration, or taking note of what things were visually appealing to me.
my ""coding"" and image hosting knowledge served me as gradually my online experience shifted from neopets to mysapce. by 2008 (the end of my frehman year of high school) everyone had abandoned myspace for facebook. since facebook eschewed the anonymity of myspace and didnt have custom code options for your profile page, as well as having its own photos and albums feature, my need to use photobucket disappeared along with my desire to collect images from around the web. i used deviantart to any drawings i felt compelled to share. i made a twitter in 2009 because i felt like i was posting too many status updates on facebook and wanted to post on something that was specifically for status updates. i joined tumblr in 2010 because someone at the art school pre-college session that i attended that summer suggested it, but i didnt start really using it until 2011 because a boy i had a crush on said he liked it.
tumblr was the first time since photobucket that i was able to so easily collect pictures of things i liked. it was, in fact, even easier, since they had reblogging which made it really easy to re-post something you like onto your own blog. since i had an essentially unlimited stream of visual information i could now easily access, and since i started using tumblr in earnest my freshman year of art college, i not only was able to easily build an archive of things that i found visually appealing, i was able to notice patterns emerging in things that i liked and felt compelled to think about why.
for awhile i would search flickr for photographs i liked and re-post them to tumbr (with credit given), taking an even more active approach in identifying my influences and interests than scrolling and reblogging. i started art school with the idea that i would be an illustrator, but i was also interested in photography and wanted to study that as well. a large portion of what i was responding to on tumblr was photography, and photography was what i felt compelled to seek out on my own. i signed up for instagram as soon as it became available for android, summer 2012. i had been following a tumblr that reposted pictures from instagram and was stoked when i was finally able to sign up.
blah blah blah....... after i switched my major to photography, i really began to pay attention to what was interesting to me, and why. color? content? composition? millions, billions, of pictures have been taken, but not all of them are good, and not all of the ones that are good are interesting. what, to me, makes something good, or even better, interesting? intangible elements of art, things that werent viscerally and immediately definable, became important. an amateur (as in, not a "professional") black and white photograph from the 1970s (?) of the twin towers disappearing into fog is shown to us in a class one day. in my freshman year of college, a classmate does a powerpoint presentation on Lucas Samaras, and i loathe him and his pictures. one year later, after i've switched my major, he's one of my favorite photographers and a first major influence. learning authorship and intent now has the effect of either elevating or cheapening my experience. i used to like things just because i liked them. now it mattered: what was art, and why?
thinking about these things has been both beneficial and harmful.
in 2014 i took a class called metaphysical aspects of contemporary art. it's one of my favorite classes i took, although to this day im not sure that i comprehended it fully. this was during the first semester of my senior year. simultaneously i was working on my thesis, something which to me, at the time, felt gravely important. it wasn't enough for me to take pictures, i had to understand what photography was, where it had been, where it was going, and what role in that i could play. metaphysical aspects of contemporary art influenced these questions. i was not interested in just taking a good picture, i needed to be creating something that meant something. i needed to understand whether i needed to even make anything at all, i needed to understand why i should make anything at all.
in a separate class i was taking at the same time, another student lamented how an idea she had had already been done before. our teacher's response to this was, "well maybe, but it hasnt been done by you." sometimes this answer satisfies me, other times it infuriates me. is simply "expressing yourself" enough of a reason? for me the bar had become "changing the understanding of what an art form can be," if i wasnt trying to fundamentally alter and challenge the notion of what photography was, then there was no need for me to participate. if i wasn't doing or striving to do something that had never been done before, then there was no point. based on my memories from this year, i dont think i ever succeeding in communicating this to my classmates (although i did try), but im also not sure they would have cared. the project of the thesis didnt seem as dire to anyone else as it felt to me. senior year went by and the thing which had occupied so much of my mental space and which had meant so much to me was inconsequential except for that its completion facilitated my graduation. so it goes!
because i dedicated so much time to the philosophical aspects of photography, and because i arrived at the medium relatively late compared to my peers (most of whom had been "into" photography since high school and many of whom had even attended art magnets, a concept i wasnt aware of until after starting college), i spent less time developing my technical knowledge, which is of course where the real photography jobs are. so, lacking in the most relevant experience, i couldn't even get a job as a photographer despite my photography degree. whether or not i would ever even want to get that type of job is another question which i still havent answered for myself.
college ends and real life begins and the idea of or the need to make art ends, or changes shape, becomes something else. many of the pictures i took in college were made possible by dint of where i lived and how i lived, and when i moved and got an office job, the available subject matter necessarily changed or ceased to exist. the cessation of specific projects and deadlines (in other words, the cessation of demands and structure) left me feeling aimless and uncertain. i hadn't, as i'd expected to, unlocked the secret to the meaning of life (or art) during the course of my senior year. did i need a reason to make something, beyond "i felt like it"?
the instant gratification of social media posting simultaneously satiates and agitates me, ultimately stymying output. posting anything while it's still in progress and receiving positive feedback on it feels satisfying enough. i've been rewarded the same as if i had actually finished the project. but (and it's been five years now that i've been in the "real world") over time dissatisfaction builds. the instant gratification isnt really enough, the well of inspiration seems to have run dry, unrealized ideas slip from memory or perhaps are lucky enough to be jotted down on a forgotten page of a misplaced notebook. where has the passion and the love gone for this thing i've done my whole life? when did it become so hard? why did i impose these limits?
this lack of creative output in my life -- that's how i perceive it, a lack. no fully realized ideas coming to fruition since 2017, although not necessarily for want of ideas. it's easy for me to fall into comparisons: to other people, making art seems easy. the peers i've kept up with since graduation dont seem to struggle the same way, dont seem to find it difficult to keep making things. i dont know why i struggle to focus or dedicate myself, and i know making these comparisons is fruitless and self destructive.
"making things" is something i want to do, and the reason is because i feel like it. the thought of making something and feeling proud of it seems good. the thought of making something and learning from the mistakes seems good. if making something has become a skill i have to learn now, instead of something that comes naturally, then i accept that. that's what seems to be the case, i have to teach myself how to do this again. i've got my little schemes, im writing my lists, im taking notes, im giving myself guidelines and goals... kind of following them, sort of attaining them.
i've been paying attention again to what interests me, collecting imagery, taking photos, thinking, writing, taking notes. as i said at the beginning, paying attention to things that catch my eye, thinking about what i find appealing, maybe as inspiration, to emulate. im thinking of it as part of this process of relearning how to let myself make things without worrying about why.....
i printed out a bunch of pictures the other day and pinned them on my walls. my thought was that i would sit in my armchair in front of the wall of photos and draw; i havent done this yet. i was attending life drawing in Los Feliz for a couple of weeks, but then i was busy and missed a couple days, and people kept having coughing fits during the sessions and i was feeling a little nervous anyway, then Los Angeles had its case spike, so now i havent been in about a month. life drawing was good because it was a structured, scheduled thing, a dedicated time set aside to draw.
i used to go to the coffee shops and draw the other patrons, although sometimes i would stare into space, or write in my journal, or scroll my phone instead. leaving the house would help me focus, via "intention." the open-endedness of my time at home, the fact that it's possible for me to work at any time, this tricks me into never starting, because i always can. if that makes sense.
all i want to do now is draw again, although most days pass without me ever sitting down to do so. i think that somehow i think blogging will be helpful with this attempt to reinvigorate myself. i want to post sketches and things im working on without the expectation of instant gratification. drawings and photos. the "informal" atmosphere of the blog feels like a safe place maybe to try sharing things. i also think it will be fun for me to post about things i find interesting and try to explain why. i'm envisioning lots of stream of consciousness writing (like this) where i react to various visual or audio stimuli.... like thinking aloud (ok not exactly) about why i like a song or a drawing or a painting or an artist. maybe more posts like the previous ones that are just collections of different things i've saved, maybe with a few sentences of thoughts, maybe not.
when i started writing this i didnt think i could sum up quickly what i wanted to post or why, but it feels like maybe that last paragraph is close to being enough. but i dont think i could have written the last paragraph without first writing the [x] previous few. more to come(?)
