#ArtMaking

[starfragment1979]

I've kept a journal since 1995, and I've been using composition books exclusively for more than twenty years because I can decorate the cover.

In 2023 I had a big downturn in my health where I became housebound, and as a result wasn't really journaling as much, because how often can you write, "I feel like shit, everything hurts, I can't sleep and I want to die"? And coincidentally, I didn't really like the cover I made for the journal I was using, which really only added to not wanting to write in it.

But I finally filled it up and started a new one earlier this year, which meant I had a new cover to decorate. This time I consciously tried for something more cheerful and with brighter colors. And I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Honestly, my health had only gotten worse -- I'm currently mostly bedbound except for meals and bathroom visits, and struggling a lot after a maybe-virus in early November. But I am trying to hang on, and trying to be optimistic.

[dyfnwalpress]

Birds, collage, 2021, 26x34 inches

This piece was an attempt after my first series of smaller prints to compare scaling and production timelines. After creating ten pieces that were 12" square over a course of six weeks, I wanted to see if I could increase the size of an image while decreasing the time it took to produce, using the same general method as before.

It was also an attempt to use up some old art supplies, and thus, "earn" shiny new tools and the "right" to pursue fun new projects. I tried a technique of fully inking the pages from a book of bird illustrations in a series of monochromes to 'kill' old markers. I then cut the images into raw elements and collaged them together into an image that could start to feel monumental and symbolic as it grew in scale.

Overall, I think I could have gone bigger and probably would have fared better taking more time to make a more planned image with more detail. Part of the issue I was facing at the time was my overall physical stamina feeling run low, so I thought the "bigger and faster" approach would kickstart something new with my art.

[gaymollusc]

tbh, I love when art has mistakes or its made by a beginner. I feels so human and oddly sweet, its not perfect but it shows someone made it, and wanted to express themselves :) It shows that there’s a person behind it who’s learning and growing, and that’s weirdly beautiful

That’s why I love traditional, its much less forgiving than digital but I feel like I can relax a lot more, knowing my lines won’t be perfect and that’s ok.

[starfragment1979]

THIS. When I was younger, sometimes I'd get some idea for a painting or story or something, but then I'd talk myself out of actually making the thing because I felt like my skills weren't good enough to execute it properly. But not only does your opinion of what is a "good" idea continue to evolve as your skills do, but you can--and should!--keep coming back to the same ideas again and again, because the more you write or draw or whatever, the more ideas and opinions you have on the subject. Van Gogh painted a lot of sunflowers because there was something about them that spoke to him. I feel like I've been writing the same story over and over my whole life, just with different characters or settings, etc, but the reason I keep coming back to the themes of parent/child relationships and found family and queerness is because I've got shit to say on the subject, and the more I write, the more I think and feel about it, and the more I have to say.

something i wish i had realized earlier: you can write poems on the same subject more than once. you can write, paint, draw the same thing over and over if you want to. you can spend your whole life making art about oranges. i think i always felt this pressure to get it right the first time like i couldn’t go back and use that inspiration again. but you can. you can go back and revisit it. you can pick up the conversation again and again if you have more to say.

[letyourwordsliveon]

Art helped them understand the world around them. Art helped them to make a coherent narrative out of the mess of their lives.

— Jen Sookfong Lee, Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart

[kree8r0]

Why are people reluctant to call out worthless art?

This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “Why are people so reluctant to call out “artists” like Mark Rothko for the sheer worthlessness of his ‘art’?” “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” This is a flawed presumption because people have no problem expressing their views on the arts they encounter. Of all the vocations humans indulge in,…

[art-progress-diary]

Hello world!

I am a professional animator who has been stagnating in personal art dept. This is a blog where I will be keeping track of my artistic growth. Wanted to bring everyone else along for the journey to keep me on my toes.

You see I suffer from a very particular ailment, one which I have not seen much around: I get too attached to the projects and stories I have in my head. No I'm serious when I say its unique, I know we all suffer from this general problem, but mine is a little bit more bothersome:

I cannot make new characters or build new worlds, because I am too haunted by the several characters from middle and high school that I have not finished the stories of. I felt, at the time that I was not good enough to bring some of those ideas to fruition- so I just developed the characters and did not draw them. Then I lost passion, then I started getting stuck.

I am talking about ideas from 12+ years ago!

I decided that I need a clean slate: no matter how hard I try I cannot shake this concepts off my mind; so these will get done no matter how shitty.

[plexigod]

i’m trying to teach myself to make art on the go again, i used to love the feeling.. collecting the world around me into sketchbooks like time capsules, daily moments not spent at my desk tucked word by word into my diaries as they happened.. the freedom i felt. rehabilitating my artists eye, my practice of creating with perfect feeling… is no different from rehabilitating my body or fractured mind. the artist is it’s own entity. neglected and atrophied. i’m trying to bring the biggest part of me back to life.

[starfragment1979]

Putting your whole heart into making weird art with utmost sincerity is good for the soul and good for the world.

I watched the 2004 Klaus Nomi documentary and his story reminded me of how you talk about creativity and being genuine. The interviewees talked about how the first time he performed with the persona Klaus Nomi at a vaudeville-style variety show in NYC in the 70s, everyone was stunned. Several of the people describing this event mentioned how the show was meant to be ironic, everyone was doing nudge-wink joking acts and goofing around, the audience/scene was apparently very cynical, but he got up and took it seriously. He was earnest, he was himself, and after a frozen moment of silence, everyone went crazy.

THANK YOU yes this is very reminiscent of what the journey of my career has been like, and this particular trot makes me very proud. all of the buckaroos who mean a lot to me artistically, from the andys (andy kaufman and andy warhol) to the davids (david byrne and david lynch) have had similar ways from 'strange' outsider to legend.

was talkin with some buds about how i think there is possibly a connection between this and my autism trot. there is a sort of ability to see a path that nobody else takes but say to yourself 'that makes sense to me, i do not really care if nobody else takes this path'. others can be bogged down with the 'right' way of doing something

so really being ridiculed like i have is this beautiful artistic TROJAN HORSE, where initially very few people take you seriously but they still let you in. they let you trot around in their brain for a while and very slowly they start to get it.

i think it also goes to show how much art is in PERCEPTION of the creator (i talk on this a lot already but this is very good example). look at something like SPACE RAPTOR BUTT INVASION getting nominated for hugo award. EVERYONE said some variation of 'this is obviously a joke and making fun of gay people and autistic people and erotica itself' and on and on. buds on the left said this, buds on the right said this. it was VICIOUS. and all the while i said 'no this is real serious art and i am doing something that goes outside of the way you see the medium itself' and that just made people MORE MAD.

but now looking back, when i presently have award winning best selling books from major publishers and so on, it is easier to see that the erotic tingleverse, as a whole, is a valid piece of art and expression that resonates with a lot of people.

really the only thing that changed was the perception of ME as a creator

anyway. i am proud of my art and where i sit in the world of artists. i like being a sort of chaotic queer punk rock force. so i cannot complain really

i will say this though. this is all a PERFECT example of how queer and neurodivergent artists have to go above and beyond to even get basic respect from both the left and the right

the years of saying 'i am serious. i am real' the years of taking vitriol, or being constantly made fun of are PERSONALLY okay with me. i am a tough buckaroo. in a strange way, that story is kind of part of the art in itself. HOWEVER we still have to acknowledge that a straight neurotypical person would NEVER have to constantly prove themselves like i have.

i dream of a world where queer and autistic artists are not harassed by one side and gatekept by the other, and believe it or not i think we are moving in a good direction. there is still a LOT OF WORK to go though

fortunately, i think there are easy ways to help. you can support outsider artists you like by reading or listening or just buying their art and puttin it on your shelf (PREORDER LUCKY DAY BY CHUCK TINGLE HERE). but ALSO, if you are an outsider yourself JUST CREATING IS SO POWERFUL. build and craft and speak your unique way into the universe. FILL THIS SPACE WITH YOUR UNIQUE WAY. THAT is how we prove love is real.

see that path that makes since to you but nobody else is willing to try? take it

[murphydesign]

Why Pop Art Matters More Than Ever | Inside Taylor McKimens’ Studio

Gonna be great if you can celebrate!

[ocqueen]

It's so sad to me that the only art mediums that get taken seriously in a traditional sense are painting. As someone who never quite gelled with paint mediums, it's sad to see so many amazing pieces relegated to the sidelines for not being acrylic or oils or watercolors. Pastels, pencils colored or otherwise, charcoals, inks (when not being used in washes like a paint), markers, the list goes on. They deserve as much attention and respect, but are just seen as the stepping stones in learning to paint or from idea to a final painting instead of fully realized beautiful art pieces of their own.

[starfragment1979]

I've been working on that fanfic, the one that was supposed to be fluff-n-smut, but the more I write the more plot starts creeping in, and just a liiitle bit of conflict. I was telling my spouse about this, and they joked that I just can't stop myself from writing a well rounded story, ha.

It's also turning out to be longer than I had anticipated, because of course it is. I had four scenes in mind, and I was going to post them as separate chapters just for ease of reading, but I was also going to post the whole thing at once because I didn't think it would be that long. But I just finished chapter one last week and it's 10k words, and if each chapter plays out the same way, 40k is kind of a lot of fluff-n-smut with some bonus plot and conflict. I'll probably still post it all at once, though, once it's done.

But, oh, friends, it is going so slow. I have been struggling with health stuff since early November... I thought at first it was just election stress, but after a while I started assuming I must've somehow gotten sick with a virus. My normal, everyday symptoms for years now include things like body aches and fatigue and sore throat and congestion and shortness of breath etc etc etc, which means it's so hard to tell the difference between just another flare up and being sick with something new, so I never even thought to test for covid until it was too late. I guess it doesn't matter now.

But I have been stuck in bed all day and exhausted and in pain and either not sleeping or sleeping like the dead and having nightmares every night and my brain is so sludgy that it takes superhuman strength to wrestle words out of it. Like it takes me fifteen minutes to write a sentence and then when I reread it I realized I already used half the words in the previous paragraph which I wrote the day before. I do have random better days where writing comes a little easier, and the story itself is clear in my head, I'm just struggling to find the words to convey it. But this one is gonna need some more substantial line editing when I'm all done writing, I think.

And just to be clear, I am writing these stories for myself. Like I do absolutely love the kudos and comments and the occasional Tumblr post or whatever, and I'll admit to regularly refreshing my stats page to see if I got more hits. But if I was just in this for the accolades, I'd go find a more active fandom.

I'm writing these stories because I love the characters and the lives and the world I've created for them. But also the act of writing itself is so vital to me feeling like a human being, and especially now as I'm increasingly bedbound and can't really access visual arts or craft projects, writing is one of the only ways I can practice creativity. I have lost so much to this illness, and I don't want to lose writing and stories and art, too, even if it's a struggle, even if I'm using more energy than I can afford to do it.

I don't know how to express how vital writing and creativity is to my mental health without this whole post coming across as a pity party. Every now and then, when I'm having a bad day or a string of bad days, I'll start to think, "Maybe this should be my last story, maybe I shouldn't be doing this anymore." But I don't like to think about what my life would be like without writing, and I don't want to lose that last little shred of humanity.

And whenever I start to think I should quit, I also wind up thinking up another story I want to write, and I wind up wanting it badly enough that I decide to keep going for just one more story. And then one more. And on it goes.

I've actually got the next story I want to write fully fleshed out in my head, like scene-for-scene, a lot of the prose and dialogue clear in my mind. It'll be a one shot where Flick has a medical issue, panics about it, and CJ helps take care of him. (I know, I know... it's not my exact medical issues, but there probably is some projecting going on here, lol.) And it's all so clear in my head that I'm tempted to take a break from my current story and write that one instead, to strike while the iron is hot, because maybe it's also easier for me to write angst than it is to write sex, ha. But I also think it's probably better for me to save it for later, so that I have some future plans and something to look forward to, to use my own stories as a life raft for myself.

[artjourneysg]

Creativity blossoms in a myriad of vibrant colors, one piece at a time. Engaging in mosaic art during art jamming is more than just an activity; it's an expedition of self-expression, teamwork, and the delightful exploration of boundless potential.

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[clartidk123]

Teaser 2

[starfragment1979]

Aww, I love Andy Goldsworthy's work.

When I was in college, I took a studio art class called "Working with Diverse Materials" and I made a couple of Goldsworthy-esque installations. For one of them, I gathered a bucket of rocks from the ravine behind campus, painted them white, then covered then with glow-in-the-dark paint, then took them back to the ravine and laid them out along the mile long trail through the ravine. I called the piece "Why Do You Keep Looking Back?" which is a line from Hansel and Gretel.

This was in the days before digital cameras, and my professors told me to take slides of all my work, so I'm not sure I even have a print to scan to show you now, so it mostly exists in my memory. But in the week or two after I set it up, before the paint wore off the rocks, I loved lurking in the ravine and eavesdropping on other hikers noticing the rocks and speculating on their purpose, and I never told any of them that I was the one who did it, because I feel like letting the viewer have their unconfirmed speculation made it a more magical experience than offering my explanations and certainty.

[laliwilde]

so basically ive been trying to create this show for years, like my whole life really but the last 5 years most of all. spending insane amounts of time just wrapped up in this girls story wondering when ill get to see her truly come alive. and right now? it’s happening. all the many months of work and all the imaginings are recreating and here i am doing the thing. it feels positively electric. i cant stop making things. i have 10 songs im writing simultaneously. im editing one episode, filming the next, recording songs for the one after that, and writing the next three. its pouring out of me like hot lava and im loving it. loving the process. loving seeing it happen. it barely feels real.