Perspectives of Motivation

Judging from my last entry, it's been quite a while since I've updated this. One of my goals this last semester in school was to start a blog. I guess my next one will be to update this on a consistent basis. Besides the obvious "too busy" to update routine, I didn't have any new work to show until recently. Hopefully my next post will include some of my new paintings I've been working on. I spent most of the last semester oil painting and I don't see this changing anytime soon, though I have been making an effort to continue my ink drawings simultaneously.

Overall, I believe this semester has been a success.  I'm beginning to have a better idea in what I accomplish with my art and I've noticed a a notable improvement overall. A number of things attributed to this such as my job at cafe Leonardo that is conveniently located at the school and a concentrated effort to do all my work at school. I spent longer periods of time at school but it enabled me to relax quite comfortably at home.

Now that the semester is over, I've been working in my own studio with a group of talented individuals that are steps ahead of me, but I'm trying to catch up. It's been a little difficult getting in since I'm working full time again but that something I really can't do anything about and I'm grateful that I at least have a job.

I'll conclude this post with the beginning paragraph of a recent paper I wrote that sums up my current putlook on art. I'll be posting the remainder of this paper in future posts. The paper is entitled "Perspectives of Motivation".

Choosing a career can be difficult. This mass understatement is a dilemma that most, if not all students face in their lifetime. This particular decision is being presented to us before we even graduate high school. I experienced this same situation and eventually arrived at "art" as my career. Making this decision seemed natural since it was my original intent growing up. Unfortunately, this decision led to  a question I found rather more difficult, do i major in illustration or fine art. This was a question that plagued my mind for nearly 3 years ( my girlfriend can attest to this). Even after deciding to major in illustration, the weight of my decision was constantly on my mind until recently. What led to this constant pressure placed on myself was regarding my intentions with "art". Did I want to take a political stance? Did I want to explore different philosophical outlooks on life? Did I want to explore the personal journey of the human experience? Did I want explore all of these things? A few months ago, I finally answered this question, my intention for art is to have fun. Though the statement is simple and short, to me this is the essential motivator that has led me to explore art. I hardly think I'm the only one to explore my early beginnings in art and coming to this conclusion. Unfortunately, we as artists function in an industry that demands "filling in the blanks" so to speak. We are encouraged to explore and question the aesthetic nature of art, but it appears that this comes at the expense of the simple nature of enjoying ourselves while doing it. To be clear, I have no problem with the aforementioned motivations listed previously. I myself try to explore these things in my own art, but am doing so because I have something to say, or because I'm part of an industry that demands it? In the end, these questions and debates over illustration, fine art or art in general are irrelevant in comparison to to our own motivations and desires. We need to focus inward instead of outward.