Hello everyone and Happy New Year!
I know, I know it's the 6th of January, but I usually still say happy new year to everyone I see up until the 10th of January. So there we are. 2016!
The first week of January had passed and I felt very creative and made some paintings, practiced my calligraphy and meditated on some deep feelings and thoughts that were starting to boil inside my heart.
Some of you, who are following me for quite some time or even new followers and people interested in my art, might think that I never struggle with my creativity. You guys are saying that I can't stop amazing you and each of my next work is better than the previous one... This is all very pleasant to my ears but in reality I am absolutely not feeling this. In anything, I am feeling like I am degrading, instead of progressing. This kind of sensations can have a couple of reasons and perhaps I have figured out a few and am ready to tell you about them.
First of all, of course it doesn't help if you see some other people's art. It can inspire you a lot and it can also suck you in and give you obsessions and put you so much off track. Especially if you haven't yet strictly figured out what your track is.. I don't think that many artist do know where exactly they are heading... Or sometimes you marvel at somebody else's creations so much, that you waste all your creative powers and powers in general from just doing that. Some of the days I feel like a mother who is 10 months pregnant and still, nothing is coming out! I can have an idea in my head and perhaps even a sketch drawn somewhere, but I just can't start.
I have noticed that starting a project is actually the hardest part. Once you are in it, it's an ongoing process and you just add up some more and more until it's finished. If you are very inspired or had too much chocolate, then perhaps you can spend the night adding that little something or nailing through the whole project with a speed of light. But starting it, God, this is so hard for me.
I remember once i needed to make a raven journal and I would walk around my room, clean it, go for walks, come back to my studio, move things around and I actually ended up painting the walls in my room ( this was during 2 days time and it felt crazy intense).. and in all this painting decorative mess, with paint jugs and brushes still standing on my table ... you know what I did? I pulled out my black clay and created a great Raven Samurai journal in the middle of the night in 3 hours. 3 hours!!!
I don't quite know when exactly the "Working Energy Gates" do open and the flow of energy, inspiration and crazy ideas start to flow out of them, but it seems like that my gates are rather spontaneous and they don't get a clue what "business", "time" or "being organised" means.
Some days I can just look at photos and pictures online and offline, go through other people's work, catalogues, books, movies, and I create nothing for days. Then Boom! and I am sitting and claying out of the blue or I have this vision before sleep in all the colour and motion of beautiful things and next morning I wake up at 5am from an urge to work and create.
Seasonal depressions don't help either and even if my ones are more of an artistic mood swings, they still kick you out of your track for good. I am not mentally ill, I am just very sensitive to weather changes and to nature life cycles. And so I struggle.
For the past couple of weeks I did put all of my clay work away as soon as I was finished with my urgent orders. I didn't feel like claying.. I was writing calligraphy and painting. I couldn't understand why, but I felt like my art had reached it's peak and not in a good sense. I felt like there is a block, but not in ideas, but in my skills, the way I do things and tools and materials I use, shapes I make, dimensions I work with. All the works I was doing were nice, but nothing like the great ideas in my head. And so I had even spoken to Ash about this, saying that I don't know what is going on, but it feels like I am shedding some skin and something is changing inside me, something is trying to grow out of me, something new but it haven't gone through the surface yet, so I don't know what it is. We discussed that I should not stop claying, that just painting might not bring me what I want from life and so on... To be honest I went away from this conversation even more dissatisfied than I was when it started... but then I went to my studio and put some music on (Solar Fields).. This music always keeps me energetic and gives me the sense of concentration and in good working state.
I went googling for inspirations after inspirations, collecting ideas, visions, characters and after I did come up with a sketch of a journal I am willing to make. Yesterday I was positive this is going to be an A4 size journal. But now I am in doubt if I want this journal to be large A4 piece or a super detailed A5. I want the actual journal to be covered in leather, with book corners and all of the details that will make this book look very professionally made. Later on when this project is finally done, I will show you and will mention all the inspirations I had, as this picture contains bits and bobs from a few photographs and digital paintings of amazing artists and so I would love them to be credited for that properly.
So here ladies and gentleman in my latest sketch of something I am willing to make.
