Slideshow Woes.

I made this slideshow last week and have been battling with the music on it almost every night.  Yeah, I am a nerd like that.  The most information I have gathered about the problem (not helping it, mind you) is that it is some kind of issue with an update from Google Chrome, which is what I usually use for my browsing.  So...long story short, it works if you open the link in Internet Explorer.

Some back story...it's about sketchbooks.  I have a small collection of sketchbooks that span my years making art.  The ones to the left...those are mostly just from undergraduate.  

Like my approach to my daily art making, with my self imposed requirements...ya gotta make one piece every day...it has to be within the context of the series...try to stick with the same size and similar materials...step back and think about the overall body of work and approach it as a narrative...then label everything and inventory it in some gigantic list...yeah, that is what I say to myself every day when I am making art. (did you just think I was drawing faces?)

Deep breath.  So I have somewhat of the same mindset when it comes to my sketchbooks.  I think I was a little more crazy about it in undergrad, but some of the OCD tendencies have stuck.  I have always loved a black, hardbound sketchbook.  But...then I feel trapped by it.  I took some time last week and....well, I actually felt a little better than I thought because I did have most of these books filled with drawings, scribblings,  musings and such...but it never failed...somewhere along the line the work inside just...stopped.

Chalk it up to being a young artist, juggling academics and a social life with the demands of art school.  That is part of it.  But I think in many ways my own way of working would stop my from continuing with a thought or idea.  For instance...I kept separate sketchbooks for the different mediums I was working on, usually dependent upon a class I was taking at the time.  This meant that an idea for a silver brooch had to go in the metals sketchbook.  An idea for a coil pot?  Yep, ceramics- that was the only place those thoughts could exist.

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I think I wouldn't let myself integrate the media and/or the thought processes, which meant that I didn't take it as far as I could have. Keep in mind this is thirty-five year old me trying to reason with what eighteen-nineteen year old me was thinking/planning/dreaming of artistically.

Another thing that prevented me from finishing my sketchbooks...fear.  I mentioned that I like the feel of a bound book.  It feels official, it feels important.  Sometimes I feel like it was fear that kept me from continuing with a thought...what if I could not execute my idea as a sketch...what if I could not articulate my goal for the piece...what if my shading was off...what if my proportion was wrong...


When I see the end of my sketchbooks I feel like those are pages of self-doubt scribbled with invisible lines that I am the only one that can see...and was too scared to go beyond.

I will keep these sketchbooks.  Looking through the pages I saw many good beginnings, but one thing that I can see is these are proof that I need to believe and to push myself to just keep going- to not be stopped by the wall of blank pages.  My sketchbook is a safe place where I can make mistakes and if I let myself- I can grow.

Interestingly enough...I have some more sketchbooks from more recent years...graduate school and post grad...I will blog about those another time.  These days I don't sketch that much, I just jump in and do the work.  Not good, I need to sketch more.  I think I need a sketchbook, and I need to complete it...to see what would happen if I was not afraid.  And while I am at it, maybe my summer project, or a future project could be to revisit those blank pages in all my other sketchbooks.

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Note about the slideshow...I had trouble with the music stopping when I viewed it in Google Chrome, so if you have trouble, open up this link in Internet Explorer:

http://www.photoshow.com/watch/sJ6zC5Ay

Another option, albeit bootleg...watch the slideshow and open another window to play this song:

Incubus, Drive

The music does make a difference, this song really spoke to me about not letting fear guide you (me)...exactly what I was thinking while looking at these sketchbooks.
-JLG