Tuesday 5 January 2010

where am i going?

Recently I read a post by a UK artist who spoke about his own downfall in being too excited/eager to work... I have exactly the same problem in that I get all enthused about an idea and I go at it full steam, my mind is working at a mile a minute, and then something else pops into my head.. either to do with the same piece of work or something completely different and I then get all excited about that idea until something else comes and distracts me... my tutor last year called me fickle, which nearly made me cry, purely because I have bad connotations linked to that word but it don' half mess you up...

Basically, I am currently out of uni until the 18th and upon our return we are to begin our new brief... however.. I'm still quite invested in the previous one... we had 4 weeks to produce a piece of work linking the theme of water to how it affects society, individuals or systems. I have technically finished this brief but I havent updated all the research onto this here blog, which is a bit pointless since i am now WELL past the deadline date for that project... but I'm trying not to go and throw myself at the new project yet.... not until I've at least gotten some more research on here to back up my final piece. the problem im having now is trying to remember the running order that I did my research in! I know i loosely looked at space in general and then focused it down... but I want to get it ALL down on here.. i've never realised jsut how much i love space... im on the brink of gettin a telescope... but cant help but feel as if it would be wasted money.. like my usb drum kit.

I have a load of links/articles/videos/magazines to put up here, hopefully before my tutorial on the 14th, but i've really shot myself in teh foot.. im playing catch up now instead of being up to date and on top of it all.. this has in turn affected any sort of personal work on the side i was doing.. plus other bits of research. I have a freelance job which i also need to get tied up and out of the way.. but in the mean time i also have a part time job.. i cant help but feel that im stretched a little too thin.. ive enjoyed the 1st year because i had no other commitments to get in the way. I feel like complaining but i only have myself to whinge at, since im the one who's letting my time management get out of control... i think i may seriously need to have a chat with someone jsut to try and get things sorted. its not that I dont really have the time for it.. its more i dont have the motivation as Im looking at a whole list of things that need doing rather than small pieces of different things...

i also want 2010 to be the year were i start self promoting more and gettin freelance PAID jobs and not getting screwed over when jobs which were meant to give me cash, decide to sever contact... or they decide that after ive done the work, they'll get someone else to do it for them.. cheaper. Im caring a little less about style... as in im not stressing to find my own style.. im currently comfortable knowing that i can recreate any existing style but im still trying to find excuses to do contour drawing and screen printing... as well as papercraft and vectors... see... its all over the place. to help with the self promotion thing, i requested Made&Sold ( a book ) as a present for my birthday in hopes that it would inspire me to sell my own work... it has.. but again these ideas need to wait for the time being... Im actually stressing more over what the hell i am going to do with my life... work wise.. i want to do so many different things but cant help but feel that the areas i want to go into are just fads and will die out by the time i graduate.

Ive actually considered setting up my own lil' business where I just do all the simple, mind numbingly easy design/art/graphic jobs that the average person doesnt know how to do. During an interview/informal chat with a graphics team, I was introduced to the term 'Mac Monkey', which basically means doing the boring jobs that involve very little creative thinking but require knowledge about programs like Photoshop or Illustrator...( i was going to go work for a photographic studio, doing retouching on the photographs.. but considering how much i genuinely hate that now.. i best not!). I currently feel like a job like this would be my best option though as I prefer working to set briefs rather than being given a random key word and told to go and produce any number of different pieces of work that could stem from a million and one ideas to do with it. I prefer the solid structure and boundaries to set my ideas in motion.. and then being able to let them loose... (hence why I like experimenting in 3D) but yet once more... I AM GETTIN AHEAD OF MYSELF!...

It probably seems a little childish, me cryin like this, wanting everything to work out fine now, or even a little like im hoping someone will come over, pat me on the back and say im doing fine but hopefully i can start clearing my head.. i have a list of things i need to get done... in a semi kind of order.. i really need to get all my research down on here to do with water before i start gettin back to normal... i jsut wish i could pause the internet so nothing new and exciting appears online before i get all this work done.. i keep getting distracted!

i miss being in the studio too :(

2 comments:

  1. Whoah!

    It's easy to over complicate,
    .write down your goals
    .be honest with yourself to the importance of
    said goals
    .structure something simple and tangable
    .work towards it

    You need to take a step back (take time off)
    Pick 3 goals
    short term
    medium
    long term

    You will find they will bleed into each other.

    Hope you've a good holiday, I cant wait to get back to class either, cant concentrate at home

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  2. Hi Bob,

    i know the feeling, though being out of education at the moment my art side of life is a bit suffocated at the moment, its taken a back seat.

    how ever the notion of not being able to commit to an idea long enough to see it through has been the bane of my artistic life so far, it can be extremely frustrating and at times uninspiring.

    knowing you for a short amount of time, and slightly understanding, i admire your integrity and passion, and though your condition is not exactly nurturing, it is a mixed amount of emotions that are decent and pure. Marks advice is good, at the end of the day you can let your self get torn apart from the inside out by a multitude of ideas, but if you stop the charging horse for one moment and try to set some beneficial constraints, you might find that you'l be able to commit to a small number of ideas and actually see them through to fruition.

    hope your ok mate,

    Marco.

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