It's detrimental to think of "talent" as some God given gift. Talent, like taste, is slowly cultivated through care and interest and time. My grandparents, like many grandparents, boast about my accomplishments to anyone who might listen, and for the first half of the conversation it's wonderful...and then, like a raspberry seed, turns bitter the further on we chew. You're so talented, my grandparents and their friends/audience might say...always say... I could never draw. I can't even draw a stick figure. But God--
And my stomach roils and it's the same conversation I've had since I first picked up a pencil. Talent. As though I don't draw til my hands ache and my fingers tremble and I ask myself, watching my hand shake ever so slightly, if I should stop or...or if I should draw just a little longer? Just a little bit. Shouldn't hurt, right? Grit can be so hard to control sometimes. Either you have too little and nothing progresses, or you have too much and your body falls to pieces. A perfect balance is necessary for both profit and health, and for an artist, triple-y so. After all, frustration comes naturally to our kind. If it isn't perfect, it isn't good, and if it isn't good, well, why bother? Of course, the natural response to anyone with a future in this industry is a gutteral, Why not?, followed by furious scribbling. At least, that'd be my response. Grit, I think, is something that comes naturally to those who are the more stubborn sort. If my original mode of attack didn't work, well, try it again. No, nothing? Let's do it again. Hands hurt? No problem, but that dang thing didn't work either and the piece isn't finished and well, you're not giving up, are you? It's in this that you cultivate talent, that you progress in your style, that you hone your skills and continue on to bigger and better things. I don't believe that there are any gifts when it comes to the metaphysical. My mother gave me hazel eyes and my father gave me my Aguirre bump and neither gave me the muscle memory necessary to draw like I do. My brothers didn't inherit their musical ability, they calloused their fingers on their own just as I have, and none of it has anything to any kind of divinity. Our art may mingle with the divine in topic, but in application? My bones creak because of me. With that said, I think the article's description of optimism is a little out of my realm. My shade of optimism is much the same as my grandmother's: You're not dead yet. Get off the ground. If you're not doing anything with yourself, if you're not working for something or seeking out something or anything--then why bother? And if you ever find yourself asking why bother and not finding an answer, then an acknowledgement of what went wrong needs to be had, followed by another plan. And so the cycle continues. I'm not sure that grit or talent require optimism, but I'm sure as hell that it requires a healthy dose of stubbornness and confidence.
0 Comments
I think, a lot of times, street art is expected to say more than it needs to. With this project I created a creature that was both grotesque and beautiful in the hopes of giving the campus a figure who could be both a simple beauty or an omen. Campuses, like many dwellings, have urban legends. The lights in McEwen flicker because it's haunted. Houghton is closed because the basement floor is housing Something created by the science department by complete accident. There is a Hag who lives in the forest, and only the track team is safe from her clutches. I thought perhaps illustrating a creature of my own would only add to the familiarity and flavor of Fred life, and so, I created this guardian. They could be used to start conversations on how we should treat the earth better because it will affect us, etc etc, but I think the main point of this creature was to give the campus a beauty that might allow them to pay more attention to their surroundings. The toadstools in their hair, pastel as they are, could easily be recognizable as their brown brethren in the forest. The dandelions are common and pulled to a ridiculous portion to stress their intricacies--things we might miss by simply walking past their buds on the sidewalk. Their bark is reminiscent of birch trees, not the stoney white of their winter skins, but the fresh, wetted green of their spring appearance. And there's a hole, because what is a guardian to do if those they're to be in charge of are being so easily forgotten?
That said, I think what I'd mostly like for viewers to do is to enjoy the creature. To enjoy the mystery it proposes and seek out answers where often there are none. I like the thought of seeing a figure, tall and monstrous and fae, outside of Williams Center because that bland and concrete building needs flavor, and why not give it some kick? I think the hardest bit of this process was not picking the spot or applying the figure--or really having to create the figure at all--but to make myself believe that the image I was creating was real. After a certain amount of hours spent on a project, ones eyes start to deceive and the mind begins to doubt and oh no, it's not good enough. But I think, coming back to it this morning, they look right at home with those pretty little bushes at their feet. Journey's are interesting to document...but sometimes, posting a morning commute online is enough to trigger paranoia. For this project, I documented my commute not from my home 45 min away from Fredonia, but from my friend Ashley's dorm in the village. This move was partially influenced by concern of giving away my home address, but mostly caused by time crunches, practicality, and ease of shooting. My typical commute is a car ride, long and boring, through corn fields and grapevines. There's very little building to utilize for a mural, and ironically, those that would qualify are already covered in paint. So rather than choose the side of a barn and break trespasser laws, I decided this was probably my best bet.
Outside of practicality and paranoia, this project wasn't entirely gripping. That's not because it's a bad project, but because of my own sort of...animation haze leftover from last night's bullet hell of frames and coloring and corrections and so many frames. So I can't accurately say how this project made me feel. I took photos because it was required, and where these photos were taken doesn't entirely matter to me because, well, autopilot has been on since midnight last night. That said, I think they came out alright--dramatic and angular and reaching in form... |
CategoriesArchives |