REFLECTIONS - MONSTERS OR MASTERPIECES
When you see yourself, what do you see? Is the person looking back at you the person you want to be and living the life you want to live, if not, why not? Do you see yourself as a monster or a masterpiece? Sometimes we have to take the time to look a little bit deeper at our lives and, in some cases, be brutally honest to answer some of those heavy existential questions.
Over the last year, I think we’ve all, in some way or another, been forced to look a little deeper at the way we live our lives, our mental health and the effect we have on other people. I definitely have. I’ve spoken in previous blogs about burning out, being pretty lost creatively and feeling an overwhelming lack a purpose. I’ve definitely not been living the life I wanted to be living recently. And, I know I’m definitely not alone in feeling like this. I’ve spoken to many of my creative and non-creative friends about this very subject and I’m hearing similar things.
Creating is what makes me tick. It gives me that purpose. When I don’t create I seem to lose my way a little and for a long time, I wasn’t creating. There hadn’t been any masterpieces that’s for sure. There hadn’t been much of anything in fact. I knew I needed a change and I was the only one who could do it. I needed to take a long hard look at myself and do something, anything, in an attempt to start getting into the habit of creating again.
So I started doing the simplest thing I could think of…
I started drawing speed portraits of myself, obviously! Loads of them in fact! Every night for a month.
OK, maybe that wasn’t so obvious and I bet you’re now thinking, ‘Why the hell is he sharing these, and why’s he being so philosophical about it all? And, that would be a very good question and one that I hope I can try and answer for you.
WHY SPEED PORTRAITS?
As I said, I’d recently been struggling with my identity not only creatively but emotionally so, self-portraits seemed like an interesting idea. Also, and more importantly, they’re easy and as the name suggests, they’re quick!
You have to remember that at this point, I’d done nothing creative in a long time and the thought of anything too complex was too daunting for my brain to process. I just needed something that would help me feel like I was being even mildly creative. The portraits became a little ritual before I’d go to sleep at night. I found a little ‘flow state’ where I would switch off and solely focus on the matter at hand. Staring at myself in the mirror and creating these single line portraits as fast as I could. I didn’t expect anyone to ever see them so there was no pressure and it didn’t matter how the portraits looked it was more important that I was doing them and doing them regularly.
SO WHY SHARE THEM NOW?
Well, in light of my last blog post ‘F*CK FEAR, DO THE WORK!’ and with some gentle persuasion from my good friend JP, who saw them and suggested I share them and turn some of the portraits into a single piece of work, I figured I should practice what I preach. So, despite feeling a little embarrassed about sharing them with the world it’s about getting over my fear of what people might think of any of the work I create and just doing it. So I did!
I bet you’re still wondering ‘Why’s he being so philosophical about these ‘silly’ speed portraits?’ And that’s because although the speed portraits might be ‘silly’, and trust me I still think they’re pretty silly, by doing them they also taught me a few really good simple ‘semi philosophical’ lessons to take forward.
‘SEMI PHILOSOPHICAL’ LESSONS OF SPEED PORTRAITS.
‘The question is not what you look at, but what you see.’ - Henry David Thoreau.
Life, art, music etc, everything really is all about our perceptions. When I was creating these portraits they were, as I said, just a bit of fun, silly and never supposed to be seen by anyone. But then a few people saw them and had a completely different perception of them. One friend even suggested putting them on a T-shirt. Now, I’m still not convinced they’re quite T-shirt worthy but it opened my eyes for sure. My idea of what the portraits are might be very different from someone else’s. And that can apply to all of a creatives work. You don’t know until you show the work without fear what the response will be and even then does it really matter what people think? To some, you might be a monster and to others, you might create a masterpiece. It’s all a matter of perceptions.
Don’t underestimate the small stuff!
Small stuff leads to bigger stuff! I allowed myself to do something small, to begin with. A daily creative practice with no pressure that was pretty fun. It was silly. But those silly portraits turned into something bigger. It turned into a whole project and gave me a subject for this blog. More importantly, though, it helped in starting a bit of a creative chain reaction along with a few books I’d been reading and I found myself having more ideas and starting to want to sketch, write and create more and more.
Make it a habit!
I wasn’t making creativity a habit. When I made it a habit, even in the smallest way with the speed portraits it led to more creativity. Many people speak about creativity being a muscle and the more you work it the stronger it gets. This is definitely true for me. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t creating in my normal medium of photography it was the fact that I was creating again that was important. So another lesson learnt! Maintain these forms of regular creative practices whatever they might be.
So, even the smallest of projects and even the ones that you might consider silly can teach us some valuable lessons, right? Especially if you’re feeling in a bit of a creative rut. This one has certainly done that for me and I’ve been way more creative in all aspects since doing it. It gave me the kick start I desperately needed. I’m really lucky that I’ve found an outlet in Creative Nowhere Land to do these projects and see where this journey takes me. Exploring the subjects that interest me and finding the things I want to say through my creativity. It’s freeing!
Anyway, thanks, as always, for taking the time to read the blog and I hope that you’re managing to stay creative in any way that you can. I’d love to hear about some of them so feel free to drop me an email. I plan on being much more consistent with Creative Nowhere Land going forward. So, if you want to stay up to date on all that’s going on, then be sure to sign up for the newsletter below. Any support is always really appreciated. So thanks in advance. Until next time you lovely lot!