drawing my future

It’s been almost three full years since I’ve graduated, and almost three years since I’ve made any “works of art”. I’ve always been my harshest critic when it comes to producing work so I’m constantly having to tell myself that it’s okay to ease back into it. It’s okay to do a little bit at a time.

The most difficult obstacle for me is that I can visualize greatness in my mind and it always ends up feeling so far away. I’m trying to live an adult life now and I don’t have endless nights to spend in a dedicated studio, alongside friends trekking similar paths. Making art has to be a choice – a decision made by me and not pushed by anything or anyone else. Without assignments, prompts, and the built-in community of school, I have to be my own catalyst.

When I graduated, I was making pieces that spoke to the poignant tension of relationships, particularly to family and maternal figures. I was using symbolic imagery and motifs to create arrangements/compositions that would feel inviting, delicate, and fragile. I’m extremely proud of what I did in my senior year of college, but I also feel like it is a lifetime away.

I’ve begun again and the only way I knew how to start was to make marks. What’s resulted is what you see here. While my physical mark hasn’t changed, I believe my emotional mark has. I’m still interested in the details, the minutia of life that drives us to change and grow. All the tiny things can really add up if you allow them to break apart and come together. Small steps it seems, but every day I feel just an itty bit closer to that something great I imagined for myself.