thinking something about what i want to do w/ my work now that i'm back
somewhere along the line i got the sense that people who i admire-as-artists are not peers, they're superiors, which really quickly makes me feel too intimidated to ask for advice/mentorship. which makes me very sad, because i think that's what art communities online are For. its not just for posting your work to show off, its for making tutorials and teaching the craft to other people, showing off your influences and explaining your process and ideas.
something about going from popularity metrics online straight into college, where suddenly we were supposed to be training for jobs that nobody in their right mind believed we would get. my professors really couldn't teach me anything that i wanted to know (none of them could draw or use digital tools, like, at all lol) and all the time it just felt like, compete compete compete.
along with some pretty intense social rejection from professors who hated teaching, potential bosses who thought i was a freak, and classmates whose art i really deeply admired, it all just left me feeling totally worthless to artistic communities irl and online !! and ofc as a millennial i've really never made much money at any job i've ever been able to get lmao. altogether, these things have always made me feel like my art is bad, no matter what it looks like and no matter how hard i try.
so i felt really terrible for the last decade, making rent with commission work on and off between retail bullshit, because most people i meet don't think of it as a "real job." but i really enjoy commission work because it feels like a collaboration with the client, and i have very kind and interesting clients who really enjoy my work. i get to take their ideas and juice 'em up with my own tastes and influences. i take a long time on my commissions because i want to use it as an opportunity to improve my skills, and i get great satisfaction out of making something carefully-considered. i care too much about craft to be very good at any job besides this one!!
really i think i'm just built not to be Employed, because i would rather be an artist, but i have had Professional Standards Brain Worms ever since college lmao. the people in college did not think of art school as a place where peers teach each other, the way internet art communities like DeviantART and conceptart.org did. but those online communities actually took me seriously and taught me what i wanted to know!!
so, since i'm coming back here i'd like to use the space for not just drawing and painting, but also posting tutorials, talking about art theory and symbolism and visual narrative and films and books that inspire me. not because it's just interesting to me but because it feels like a way to model for other people a way to think about art holistically, craft + content at the same time. it can all be part of how i pass on my skills to everyone else who might want them, which is really what i want to offer the world more than pretty pictures.
so im gonna be posting more varied stuff here, and i'm leaving the ask box open, but i'll try to tag everything consistently so ppl can search or block things they dont want cluttering up their feed. im so excited to finally get back to actually studying and collaborating with other people, since that's what i've always really enjoyed 🌞
