Anyway, usually what results is an explosion of creativity. Usually, that's exciting... but this time I'm scared, and I don't mean that melodramatically.
I really am. Here's why:
Usually, I'm surrounded by other people, (they don't realize their main purpose is to keep me grounded during these times)... but this time... I'm around 2 boys that know me almost too well. Or rather, I should say, I know too well. I can run around like mad and get away with murder because they know... when it gets to this point... there is no turning back, so they just let it happen... well, one let's it happen awaiting the magical results or the catastrophic meltdown and the other has no clue what to do whatsoever. But, in short, it helps to have others around that I can bounce ideas around with, make stuff with... you know, that general flim-flam. But, I don't have that.
Right now, most of my stuff is in storage and this includes most of my art supplies. I'm left with a few sketchpads, some watercolors, elmer's glue, and craft foam. That's fine, really. Limitations often expand the mind to possibilities, but limitations on someone who's going to explode only adds fuel to the fire.
And, did I fail to mention... did you see the last mega-creation I came up with? It was insane. The product of over a year's worth of planning and seven months of hard-labor.
How do you follow up with something like that? The resources it took to create that thing alone are crippling as it is... to make a simple painting on a canvas feels like I'm taking 20 steps back. But I can't just make another room... I don't think I want to anyway.
What's happening to me right now is just a classic set of two separate cases.
1. The first being a "I just got out of college case and I don't know what to do with myself."
-What makes my case a little different isn't the fact that I'm burnt out and I want don't want to do anything, or even that without guidance I lack direction, it's just I have too many avenues that I want to pursue. I have my webcomic that I desperately want to get up and running, commissions that I'm in the middle of, too many costumes to list that I want to make, characters concepts to draw, landscapes inspired by my novel I want to render, my novel itself, the desire to want to prove my fine finesse of technical ability... it makes me want to pull my hair out. All the while, I'm struggling with the idea of how to present myself physically as that has become for some reason, yet another art project. I'm madly and hopelessly obsessed and it's getting in the way of being obsessed.
2. The second is just part of a predictable cycle that I go through... read into that what you will. I live with it well enough most of the time.
This time though, I can feel it. I tingle... everywhere, if that makes sense. I can't sit still and nothing seems good enough. It's like laughing and crying at the same time, 100% effort put into each.
But honestly, I'm just a little worried. I'm afraid of this precipice. It's always messy. I'm not worried that I'll come out with poor results, but I know I'll come out with some amount of damage to add to the collective. Chippin' off the stone, if you will. I'm going to be a funny looking stone.
I guess we'll just see what happens.
Photo courtesy of "socoolisme" on Deviant Art and youtube
Can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. It is more frustrating when you lack the creative ability or the tools necessary to exercise it. Sometimes when I get like this I will stay up all night just writing. Lee will come out and ask why I never came to bed and I'll say "I'm writing, shut up." You can't really get past it until you feel you've let out all the creativity that's been locked up inside you. Anyhow, I know we're not best buds or anything, but if you ever feel the need to employ me as one of your minions, my creativity or lack thereof is at your disposal ;)
ReplyDeleteAll sculptures look funny when they are "in-progress".
ReplyDeletethere are slot of other things I could say, but honestly I don't think it would make much of a difference from this far away. Your far to smart for The "Chin-up" blog comment to really make much of an impact...
Text is so... impersonal.
You mention a stone, but, funnily enough, you seem more like a "river" kind of person to me.
ReplyDeleteRivers change course; they narrow, they widen; they run dry, they flood. They're fed by tributaries, and they feed other water sources. Sometimes people change rivers, and sometimes rivers change people.
But rivers are never static.