Art - Blank pages
Beginning art is paralyzing. I know that from having lived as an 'emerging' or 'young' artist for so long. Beginning ideas, putting words to thoughts, brush to page, or ink to paper is a paralyzing task. It's a vulnerable proposition, committing. I used to think of myself as being generally noncommittal, floating through life where the currents take me, but I've begun to realize that in fact to be a good artist, you need to have a sort of sense of stubbornness to you.
Beginning things starts with the simplest of things for me. Sometimes I watch ink run down a page, or the interaction of people. I scrawl notes on scrap paper, quick little ink drawings of gestures and facial expressions. I concoct elaborate scenarios and scenes in my mind of how moments might have played themselves out. The exchanges of people, the gestures, the way they look at each other, their worlds and what they see.
Pull back the camera, look at them, study their motions, imagine their home life, their relationships.
Their thoughts.
And then I throw it all away and ask them.
People are blank pages until you ask.
I'm no longer paralyzed by creating new things, there are no new things to create, only existing stories to be cataloged, imagined, and shared.
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