2/27

does photography take the same toll on me as painting?
does it give me as much pleasure?
some thoughts in response to elsa
(thankyou)

background:
i started shooting quite seriously when i was in high school; i felt i had found the perfect outlet for my creativity since i was afraid i couldn't draw. in college it was my "concentration" (progressive schooling, we didn't have "majors") and after graduating i spent the next 10 years working as a photographer: both as an artist and editorially. at a certain point i became completely blocked; i felt i was taking the same picture over and over, i got anxiety attacks in the darkroom. i worked for over a year to break through this: new projects, different formats, nothing worked. it was every bit as bad as what i experience now, at times, in the studio. it almost broke me, i gave up shooting, i did not pick up a camera again creatively for 20 years, when i started flogging.

what i thought about today:

1. process vs. product - presently, as a photographer i am not trying to produce anything, i am really just having fun, exploring. if i bump into something i don't like, i turn around and do something else, if i get bored, i start something new, i don't feel the need to push too hard to work through stuff. it is similar to how i deal with my small work: sometimes i'll put a piece down for a year or two before i resolve it, sometimes i never pick it up again, sometimes it's done in 2 minutes. it is very hard for me to have this freedom with the larger work (and that is actually EXACTLY what i am trying to address in preparing for this show).
first there is a limit to how many large paintings i can have hanging around at any one time, but i can have 1000s of images on my hard drive and 100s of small pieces in the studio.
second the large work is much more expensive to make and that can be inhibiting; there is a pressure to make each one "work".
and third, there is the commitment to show.

2. showing - while i put the photos out in the world to be seen (and commented on) they are not being presented as a finished body of work to be judged. i am not using them to say "this work fully represents what i have to say about what i am seeing/feeling at this time". the photographs are more like the daily watercolor journals: a means to an end and not (at this point) an end in themselves, there is no right or wrong, or good or bad, they just "are".
but the paintings have to be able to go out in the world and stand on their own, not only in context of each other but completely alone without any frame of reference. each one needs to be able to resonate, provoke and be true all on its own. this i find to be extremely intimidating and it requires that i go deep, deep inside myself to make work that even begins to approach these goals.

3. deep, deep - in jungian terms i am a "thinking" type (bet you never would have guessed) therefore i choose to paint from my feeling side. i could make work from my head (i think that was what killed my photography the first time around), it's a very fashionable way to create, but it would bore me. on the other hand, to consistently put yourself in a place that is unfamiliar and challenging is scary and difficult. and i also believe in delving into the depths of the shadow side, not only mine, but that of the collective and this is scary and difficult too. i believe that the creative journey is no different from any other: just as people climb mountains, risking life and limb to satisfy some unnamable desire, some people paint, some write, some act... not out of choice but out of need.

but:
while this is one side of it, the other is that sometimes i say that i make the large work so that i can do the small, because in a way, these little playful pieces are closest to me. maybe at the root of this is that i feel i need to really "sweat it" to justify playing, but that the work that comes out of play will ultimately be the most important. and the photo (for now) falls into that play category. sooner or later though, i know that i am going to want to try to harness this energy and figure out how i can present all these images in a more coherent and accessible manner. and i am sure that will take a toll as well.