It was easier to create when I was younger and had all this creative energy. I didn’t really have any life, or social life, I didn’t really have anything other then just thinking about and making creative stuff. I spent most of my time then, just like rapidly and kind of obsessively making things.
At the time everybody told me that all that kind of energy will calm down, and it will get harder and harder to make work. They said you need to develop a strategy, or a routine, or a practice for making work. So it becomes a sort of habit that you create for yourself. And because I was younger I thought of course that would never happen to me, I love making stuff, I love being creative, I'll always have this energy.
But of course as I got older, and things started replacing my time, and I started having other things that fulfilled me, it got harder and harder to think about making work in an individual way.
I have this great group of friends, I have a great partner, a kind of crazy dog.
I have a family, a career, and an active social life. And it's hard with all of that to fit in time just to sit down and make work, it's hard to find time to create things and make new stuff. And I've also always thought that work should be about something. Like something rather than just experiments in color theory and shapes and patterning, because those things I enjoy, but I just always wanted work to be about something else other than the visual.
And so I just could never really figure out what I wanted to say in my work, and because relationships and friendships, and life took over work and art just took a back seat. But gradually I'm starting to think that maybe all these things like relationships and friendships are what does keep me up at night. The things I'm worried about are all kinds of existential things.
As much as I wanted my work to focus on the state of the world, or politics, or grand theories, it just always comes back to being about personal reflections, and a space to kind of meditate on the things I want and the things that I have. And there’s a part of me that just says, “Man I know you don’t want to just hear about these kinds of whiny existential questions from another straight white dude.” like it feels kind of selfish and hyper specific to only focus on me.
I think it made me kind of bitter and created this road block in my creative process. And also I have this day job where I make stuff all day, and like not just in a vacuum, not just alone, not just an introspective thing.
It’s like rigid, and structured, and controlled and project management-y. When you create stuff there’s a team, and outside voices, and stakeholders. There’s a lot of people who can tell you no, but at the same time there’s a ton of people who say “Yes…but” and help direct you and your designs into a better place. It’s a lot of distilling information and ideas and thoughts and patterns into something digestible and usable and visually interesting.
You have to fight for some things, and let other things go. It’s nothing like just being alone in the studio alone with your thoughts making stuff by yourself. It’s not just obsessing over things you are interested in and having fun all the time.
And that mental work at my job made me think “How am I going to make something that articulates exactly what I’m feeling and thinking?” and if i’m honest with myself I miss that reflective time where you are just creating stuff and exploring and having fun. Where you took an hour or 30 minutes just to create and experiment and draw things.
I’m trying to work on bringing that back and carve out time in my life to really focus and build routines to create those kinds of things and experiments again. It’s hard when the things I want to draw that I'm obsessed with are boring and banal. Like just the plant leaf in front of me, or the tape measurer on the table. And I never want to draw these things particularly well, or hyper detailed. I just want to draw them over and over again.
One of the things I'm trying to work through is how to build the kinds of work that I’ve always been interested in, things that are big and bold but also boring and comforting. Like bricks, rocks and structures, random stacks of paper on the table. The kind of work that felt both effortless and incredibly dedicated, the kind of work that felt manic and obsessive and had some point or something to say. And I don’t know exactly how to phrase this, but also just looked so nice and beautiful and dynamic on a wall.
This is all to say, I’m still working on how to create a practice, how to dedicate some time to focus on work. And maybe part of that will be writing about how I create work.