because I'm an artist.

Song Recommendations:

Florence + the Machine - Heavy in Your Arms, Seven Devils

Sometimes we have low points in our "job" in life. Or our chosen career. But that doesn't mean we give up. Inspiration is everywhere around us and sometimes we just need to zoom out from what we're doing, take a step back and let the world inspire us all anew. Adapting a little of JLaw's frankness wouldn't hurt either: http://31.media.tumblr.com/6b2cab7cf54a36edebc1a56264972664/tumblr_miql99uJzU1qck5fxo3_250.gif

For me lately, it's been music (lyric breakdowns and getting wrapped up into fantastical worlds that I've long been away from) but also one of the classes I'm taking is forcing all of us out of what we know to be photography and to look at it in all of it's past forms. We've moved on from pinhole photography and into scanography as of late, and it's so different. We aren't looking through a lens, but instead discovering new things that are normally right under our noses, and distorting them into something altogether new, which is thrilling.

That and I went to an artist talk last night by the global designer for Calvin Kline's denim, and that really opened my eyes as well. I've been so bogged down by trying to be better that I've overlooked my creative process on how to even make my own art. He broke down his pipeline for all of us and it was definitely a "why haven't I been doing this this semester????" kind of moment. If I'm not doing art for myself, I'm not doing it right.

Needless to say, I feel recharged creatively. Now to find a way to work in the time to utilize it all!
This isn't the first time I've wished that I had a time turner or some way to suspend time so I can accomplish all that I want to (including getting enough sleep > >  )

checking in, but keeping busy

Song Recommendation (not necessarily while you read, but whatever): 

Staying on top of two photography classes, an online art history, making a game, and surviving my senior capstone for studio art is keeping my hands more than full this semester. But! I can at least share some of the spoils with whoever stumbles across this page.     EDIT: SORRY for the AWFUL color on some of these... I took them with my phone rather quickly and called it good enough when clearly they're not good enough haha.. wee.

INTRO CYANOTYPE:

INTRO 35MM COLOR FILM:

INTRO PINHOLE:

DIGITAL:

With another shoot scheduled for tomorrow with two models (yay for friends), more pinhole shooting on Wednesday, two midterms, a meeting with a MSU game design grad who went on to SCAD and is now in the industry, 20 hours of work somewhere in there, and heading home on Friday for my brother's birthday, I'm doing my best to stay on track.... but we'll see how it goes.

Additionally, I've had to do a lot of retrospection/planning for the future lately. There is nothing worse than your mother misplacing your anxiety for the next couple of years on your current relationship with "are you worried you'll have to split up?"
- ___ -
Of all the things, I don't think I've ever worried about my relationship.
No, instead I'm worried about my empty degree and lack of skill trying to support me in the incredibly competitive job market.

To put emphasis on the stress I feel concerning my own shortcomings as I see them, I was tasked with writing an artist statement for my senior show (which as of right now doesn't consist of anything, because me.)

I thought I'd put what I typed up (or the draft anyway) here for you all to see and maybe understand a bit about me and how I feel about what I do:

"I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to being an artist. I make what I want to make, try new things when they attract my interest, and tend to stick to what I like. I don’t make particular series to try and push an issue in the world with my art. In fact, I don’t even think about the world when I’m making my art. My art is for myself. If others are able to get joy or excitement or any sort of appreciation from it, that’s just a bonus. I realize this sounds incredibly selfish, but I don’t really do anything unless it’s for me. That’s (unfortunately?) who I am.

            I don’t have anything to reveal in my work along the lines of some intention or hidden meaning, so don’t bother looking for one. There is never any attempt to send a message, make a statement, or for people to take away something “more” from my work. If it ever looks that way, it wasn’t on purpose. I take pictures of what I like, for myself and for the people in the pictures. This is simply what I do, and I continue doing it in the hope that I’ll improve."

 There you go.
Add this (http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/2013-10/enhanced/webdr06/3/17/anigif_enhanced-buzz-29606-1380834724-10.gif) and you have me in a nutshell.


And on that note! Back to the grind.