Not Been Feeling It

I've been falling victim to my constant grad school woe of late, Spiders. I've been spending way too much time thinking about why I'm working, and not working. Admittedly, I've also been doing a lot of reading (which has been good!) but I haven't made any new prints other than test strips. That's not good, and it's starting to get to me. I'm feeling down and unaccomplished. I've actually felt this way... uh, pretty much since I started grad school. There was a little bit of excitement in November, but that faded away pretty fast and I'm back to spinning my wheels.

Basically, I know what I want to do. I know why I find it interesting. I know why I'm making the choices I'm making. I know that this is something that fascinates me, that it's the result of many different influences that are all extremely important to me and draw from a lot of different aspects of my life and the cultures I've been surrounded by and been part of. My problem is in communicating that to others in a way that is clear and concise, and fits into the current narrative surrounding contemporary visual arts. That problem is what's stumping me and making me wonder if I even want to be part of contemporary visual arts. Because it seems a lot like contemporary visual arts isn't interested in what I want to share. Hell, it felt like that sometimes in undergrad, too. It probably feels like that for all artists.

So, I've got two choices. I can either continue with what makes me want to be an artist, doing my work despite a deafeningly underwhelming reception of my core motivations, or I can give up and scrap everything I've been working on for six years in favor of something that fits better with what other people want me to be.

I'm pretty sure that I want to say "fuck you" to that second option. But, then again, I really want not to have wasted tens of thousands of dollars, mortgaged my future, invested years of effort, left behind the beginnings of a career that I love dearly, and generally accept a huge blow to my identity and life path. I mean, who really needs integrity or dreams, right? People trade those away for a living all the time.

Yeah, I need to get back to making art. I'm getting maudlin as fuck. Screw these expectations. They can wait until I've got more shit finished.


(Will also accept third choices, btw. Just haven't found any.)