Failing As An Artist

me looking like i’m about to pick some freshly grown veggies from my garden as soon as i finish this shoot

How are you doing? Are you tired of people asking how you’re doing?

I kind of am. There’s really not much to say, you know? I’m at home, I miss my family, everything seems like it’s on fire, I watched my cat chase a piece of fuzz around the living room for 15 minutes today and it was the most entertaining part of my week.

If you don’t know, I just graduated from SCAD in May. Since then I picked up a part-time job and have been taking some time to really think about my work and the career I want. I’ve been reflecting on my 4 years at SCAD, what I learned, and what I didn’t. In case you missed it, a couple of months ago I posted a video about thoughts on my time at the school and whether or not I felt like my time was worth it. TLDW: I do think it was worth it. But I don’t think anything could ever prepare me for the “real world”.

I’ve just been thinking a lot about my career and how it feels post-graduation. The truth is, I’m not where I wish I was. I’m not near where I imagined myself being once I graduated. And it’s because I didn’t really take ownership or control over who I was and my goals until…well, now. Maybe I’ll talk more about that process in the future, but for now I just want to acknowledge the mistakes I’ve made, or things I’ve done wrong.

I just posted a video reflecting on the mistakes I’ve made so far as a young artist, in case you’re more interested in watching the video.

But I know some people enjoy blogposts more, so keep reading if you’re interested.

Mistake Number One:

Not Getting Started

Sooner

I think that it’s important to have work that you’re proud of and confident in before you start trying to put it out there in the world. But it can be hard sometimes to differentiate between: “Oh…I don’t know if I’m ready yet…” and “No. I’m not ready. I know what I want to do and I have an idea of how I can get there.”

Over the last year, I can just personally tell that I was playing things safe. I look back on the work that I was making a year ago and I just wonder why I never did anything with it. I was reorganizing files on my computer recently and scrolled through some of my older work and I was struck by how much I enjoyed looking at it. I looked at those pieces and I almost felt like I was looking at the work of another artist, I had become so disconnected from it.

I remember at the time, I was also proud of the work, but I was too scared to stake a claim on it, you know? I was too scared to submit that work into shows, or put it on my website, or even just start pushing my work on social media. Since I’ve been looking at that work more, I’ve started transitioning my current practice to reflect the older work more, because what I was working on recently was incredibly unsatisfying to me. And I just think if I had started promoting myself and my work then, where would I be in my career now?

But there’s no need to think of that time as wasted, I now know that what I was just working on isn’t for me. And that’s an accomplishment.

Mistake Number Two:

Always Taking

Everyone’s Advice

Probably my biggest mindset issue is being too susceptible to others and their opinions of my work. It’s one of the main reasons why I was so ready to graduate, and one of the main reasons why I’m putting off grad school for a while.

I’m not good at avoiding seeking validation for my work. Whenever professors would compliment my work, I’d be sure I was on the “right path”. Whenever professors would suggest a different direction I’d think “okay that’s the actual path I should be on” even if I knew that wasn’t the direction I really wanted to go in.

Or when classmates I thought were further along than I was, or classmates I respected would say something like “I’m not sure this is the work you should be making right now” or “I don’t think this work would be successful in the world right now” I would instantly discount what I was working on. Later, as I was getting closer to graduating, I got a lot better at saying thank you for that critique but I’m not actually going to listen to that.

Critique is super valuable, but so is understanding that you have the ability to take ownership of your work, even when people don’t agree with it. You won’t ever be able to please everyone, your art should only please yourself.

If you’re not making work that you’re passionate about one) you’re going to get tired of working really fast because there won’t be any true drive two) people will see your lack of confidence and interest. Nobody is going to invest in your work, much less be interested in it, if you don’t even seem to enjoy it.

Mistake Number Three:

Thinking Too Much

If you’ve seen my most recent sketchbook, you know that the first 1/3 of it was mostly note-taking. I’m a big believer in constantly questioning your practice and learning new things about your work. But there is such thing as thinking about things too much.

It would get to the point where I would pose a question in my sketchbook, struggle to find the answer, and instead of continuing to work and make my way through the problem, I would just become stuck in place. I would shut the sketchbook, put my work to the side, and become plagued by that question for several weeks or months, unable to work before I solved it. That’s not a necessarily healthy or productive mindset.

I still ask myself questions, I still give my work room to breathe, because I think it’s important to my personal practice, but I’m working on being more active and trusting the process.

Recapping Sophomore Year at SCAD

It's been four days since the final quarter of my sophomore year ended and I finally feel relaxed enough to make a post about the entire year in review. I'm sitting on my girlfriend's couch surrounded by three cats, with a fan blowing full blast (thanks Georgia summer) and an ice cold bottle of water next to me. It's a very quick turn around from a couple of days ago when I was hunched over a printmaking table desperately trying to push ink into the burrows of a copper plate, running back and forth between that and the painting studio where I was willing paint to dry faster than physically possible.

This year was ultimately a very good one for me. From where I'd sit I'd say freshman year was the hardest. I missed my home, I was going through it, my friends were going through it, and the distance from everything that had been so familiar for 20 years of my life was extremely heavy on me at all times. But I came into my sophomore year a little more experienced and a little more prepared. I had my ups and downs of course but in the end I'm much happier.

I started my painting classes in the fall which was probably a huge benefactor. My freshman year I had to take all foundations courses, despite having gotten a lot of the credits from my AP classes in high school (don't ask me why I didn't receive those credits. We're still working on that). I learned very quickly that design classes were the bane of my existence and giving 105% in my drawing classes didn't leave me with a lot of energy for the rest of my schedule. It was a year of learning to balance things and I'd say I'm still probably working on that. But finally getting to explore the major that had given me a lot of apprehension (everybody wants to know what exactly you're going to do with a painting major) (paint.) since switching from illustration halfway through my freshman year, was like lifting a very very very heavy weight off my shoulders. My friend from home who came to SCAD with me as an illustration major was originally hurt to see me ditching him and our future as illustrators together for painting, said I seemed much happier and right at home up in the painting department. It also helped having constant support from my painting professor and parents over the year.

I can't say if the body of work I put out over this year versus last year is better. My work as of late is definitely more "me". As my painting professor says, I've taken ownership over my work. I did a lot of experimenting which led to immense growth in my creativity, but ultimately I'm still working at the medium. I learned more about painting with acrylics and oils in a couple months than I had in years, but there's still so much more to explore. 

Now I can compare my work from the beginning to the year to the end and definitely say my work is better. It's just entirely different from what I was doing last year. But over the year I clearly became more confident in the expression of my ideas and my experimentation with the media and I feel happy with whatever direction my art is going in. I have a vague idea. But my professors always say to discover the painting as we're working. And I feel like that's what I'm doing.

Outside of my painting classes I took a lot of art history and when I wasn't taking an art history class I was up in the library looking at art history books or books on painters or printmakers or sculptors. I always knew the library was up there, of course, but this year I really discovered it as a nice place to hang out, listen to some nice music, and stock up on a ton of inspirational resources, while also not being bothered by the regular hustle of the busy school. The highlight of my year was probably finding a book on the entire art history of Colombia, though I never got to read it. I know where it is and I'm going back to get it as soon as I return in the fall. 

I also took a Computer Arts class which sucked. Just flat out sucked. If you have any experience with computers at all just save yourself and take the advanced class and actually learn something. In CMPA I we were taught how to open up Microsoft Word and change the font. Seriously. 

Aside from that, I took Life Drawing I and Printmaking for Non-Majors which were both extremely beneficial and fun classes. Life Drawing changed not only the way I drew the figure but also the way I looked at the figure and the rest of the world around me. It sounds corny to say but drawing from life will always change the way you look at things. It also felt good to pick up a pencil to draw again. I hadn't taken a drawing class in about seven months and hadn't drawn much in between. I was a little rusty no doubt. Printmaking was an entirely different beast. I had done linoleum prints in high school but even then they were simple and basic. This class really made me appreciate all the work that went into prints. I guess something about the replication of it, the fact that you could make so many copies of a print once it was done made it seem like a quick and somewhat easy process, though I knew that wasn't really true. But there's hours and hours and days of labor that goes into making a print that really makes the final result so worth it. The duplicative nature didn't make it easier at all, in fact that's what makes printmaking so intense. But it's a very rewarding process and while the work I turned out might not be great I'm still proud of the work I put in. It was definitely a balancing act. 

Outside of academics I just grew a lot this year. I gained a lot more independence. I got comfortable going to events alone. I went to my first concert by myself and got used to walking around the city more alone (though still with caution of course). I'm overall a lot more sure of myself and my decisions. I just made a somewhat spontaneous decision to join a girl's creative trip to Cartagena, Colombia (<3333) with My Closet Etc. and I'm so incredibly excited. I have family members that go back every year but in my 21 years I've never gotten to visit. So I'm going to work extra hard this summer to make the money and take my own butt to visit The Homeland. 

I've got a lot of traveling planned this summer, which is weird for me, but I'm not going to let it get in the way of making art and growing more. I'm gonna brush up on my digital art and make more collages and I've also got my dad prepared to help me build some canvases this summer so maybe I can start working larger. 

I have two vlogs I started filming during the final month of finals which hopefully I'll edit to be cohesive and get up on YouTube. I want to make a lot of videos to document my journey and life as an artist to add to here. I've got a lot of plans for the future and I couldn't be more excited.