Unnamed Forty Seven — Sidelong :: (click image to see more)
Just had a great conversation with another artist and in it mentioned the idea of self erected barriers. I confess, I am the king of barriers – if there is such a thing as a kingdom for this behavior. I too readily erect internal barriers to justify not moving forward with something.
Like right now I’m stalling on shopping my work out to galleries – I’m struggling with it out of some kind of misplaced fear. I’ll overcome it, I have to – but at the moment I’m still stuck and no one else can do this for me. It’s an internal struggle I have to conquer for myself.
Light Spear Over Madras, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)
For so long now I’ve been afraid to promote my images to galleries. If I psychoanalyze myself I’m sure I could dig up mountains of excellent, rational, reasons why this is the case – and just because I’m able to name my fear hasn’t made it any less fearful for me.
But I’ve undertaken to systematically face my fear and somehow push through it. It’s long past time I did this. I can no longer deny it’s holding me back. My method is small steps – baby steps. Each step in itself is logical, doable and non-threatening – so I can do it – am doing it.
Occasionally though when I take a longer perspective and see the destination of my small step process I get locked up – for a moment at least. It’s weird. Hopefully this fear will leave me once I actually manage to reach my goal and promote my work to galleries.
Orange Overriding Mauve, 2012 – Light Signatures :: (Click to see more)
I’m entering into another phase of my – well dare I say, plan? More a loose collection of ideas, ideals and intents than a coherent plan. All the same I’m entering into a new segment of it. On one hand, I’m excited, or more simply, I’m thinking – oh at long last, on the other hand I’m kind of tired of thinking about it for so long and not so jazzed. The excitement and anticipation come in waves interleaved with apprehension and corresponding fear.
It’s somewhat unknown territory for me but stuff I’ve had a good long time to get to know in a kind of conceptual way in my imagination at least so its not completely unknown. And of course part of why it’s taken so long to get to this phase is my intense discomfort with this stage. A lot of the lead up has been practice, working out concepts and just plain getting myself as familiar with the ideas as possible without actually executing. Kind of like a lot mental dry runs.
My fear and apprehension is completely irrational I know, but the intellectual understanding of my irrationality doesn’t diminish the gravity of my emotion – unfortunately. So I’ve had to find other ways to gradually pry my fingers off the ladder rung I’m on, in preparation for the leap of faith into the great void of the unknown – part of which has been to familiarize myself so the void is not so unknown. Does this mean I don’t have faith in myself? Hmm.
In many ways I find it easier to do things when I don’t know so much – which is how I got started when I seriously committed to following my photography practice as a career. If I had known as much as I do now or known as much about the obstacles and pitfalls, I wouldn’t have had the guts to make the leap. I would have buckled. I’m not sure why the unknown nature of the void has been such a unusual stumbling block for me this time, especially considering unknown is usually easier for me.
Perhaps its to do with high expectation – unreasonable expectation? More likely its because my vulnerable feelings are at stake. I don’t like getting hurt. I don’t know, and I kind of don’t care at this stage – or so I tell myself constantly in the hope of lulling my fears. I’ve kind of beaten the whole thing until its a dead horse so I might as well give up thinking about it so much and just stumble on through.
Bright Yellow Streaks, 2011 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)
I’m sitting here listening to I Live In A Suitcase by Thomas Dolby and reading Programming the Universe by Seth Lloyd where he is describing the early stages of our universe and contrasting it with now –
“Planets and suns cluster together to form solar systems. Our solar system clusters together with billions of others to form a galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way, in turn is only one of tens of galaxies in a cluster of galaxies – and our cluster of galaxies is only one cluster in a supercluster.” Programming the Universe, Seth Lloyd
You get the idea. We and our actions are so infinitesimally insignificant in the larger picture that I often wonder what exactly I’m doing and why I bother. Conversely, I think, since itIS my job to learn and make things then I might as well do it with style and without fear, since what the hell I’m so cosmically insignificant anyway.
I think if my life – my very existence – is that insignificant, then I should act accordingly and not bother getting all bent out of shape about things I’m afraid of and things that hurt. Okay, I suppose those things are useful in that they shape my perspective which in turn informs the things I make… hmmm.
Perhaps it would be better to adopt a slightly split attitude. One where I do care and so am still shaped by the elements of my life, but also one where I am ever so slightly disengaged – enough that I am not fearful.
For me, Fear is my greatest foe. It prevents me from acting freely and intuitively, slows me down and wears me out. I have wanted to live without fear for a long time now, but – and here’s the irony… I am afraid to let go. HA! Talk about an infinite loop, I’m trapped. One of these days, I’ll find a way to break free. Either that or I’ll wear a hole in the process and gradually ooze out.
Despite all this, I have resolved to make beautiful – yet insignificant … things. Hopefully in some way I am enriching the larger universe. If nothing else at least I’m doing my part to slow entropy.
