Refresh

I've gotten a lot of creative inspiration from various sources these past few months, and they all seem to be coalescing. I feel like I'd been in a rut creatively for a while now, and I wasn't trying anything new, but it seems like recent events have conspired to boot me into a new phase... or at least a new way of looking at my creative life.

I went to a friend's exhibit yesterday. Adam is a talented young man full of promise, and the energy to realize his visions. I met him years ago at a fragrance launch, where he volunteered to pose for me without even seeing a stitch of my work. I later found out he and I had many similarities as artists, but he's at the beginning of his career, while I seemed to have come to a standstill, relying so heavily on my abilities as a designer to get me through creatively.

His exhibit was impressive, with huge, 8 foot mixed media work, as well as many smaller collages and rough sketches. It reminded me of when I would try anything and everything, to create. It left me really proud of him, and feeling both frustrated as well as fiercely competitive. It was energizing. And I later ran into several other artists, coincidentally - my friends Michael Letzig and a writer named Pie who knew about Adam's exhibit, and we spoke about our art. And with my recent commission for my friend Bosco, I was questioning my worth as an artist, versus just being an illustrator.

I've become complacent with my abilities. I know I can do so much more now than I used to when I was younger, when I strived so hard to be able to draw things I couldn't. I love faces, and they come so much more easily to me now more than ever. But with the confidence seems to have come a complacency. I seem to be satisfied just drawing, but not necessarily creating work. Or even trying newer things.

Tonight's drawing was something new. It's a cheesy drawing, partially inspired by Adam's collages (not for the cheese part, but for the softer palette as well as the collage style), partially by the resurgence of frommage-filled 70s magazine illustrations in modern graphic design, and partially by the new music I'd been recently introduced to by two choreographers I've been in touch with more these past few months. I decided to try using the palette knife again for its softness, working in newer tools in Painter, and just kept on it, drawing whatever came to mind, but consciously trying new techniques. It's not an amazing piece, but the fact that it's so different from what I've been doing is immensely satisfying. I'm hoping this is a new path and not just a fluke.