Finally made it through photographing thirteen sketchbooks/journals worth of images. Of course I didn’t record everything because a lot of it is just not good, and for the most part eleven out of those thirteen were mostly writing and not drawings. It still ended up being a LOT of stuff. I have a set of slides from my last real quarter at KCAI in late 1990-early 91 which I need to have someone turn into digital format images (there are places that do that, right?). Was surprised to find that I have a continuous bridge of work from that time until now. Some of it just crappy sketches and bad emotive writing, but still. Some of it isn’t too bad. I’ve been doing art all along since then and I have material evidence of that. And that’s just the material evidence, not counting the performed art of ritual that took up 90% of my artmaking efforts for a number of years. Seeing the continuity of work over 20 years or so has been surprising to me since I’ve had to work pretty hard to contradict the strong persistent voice in my head that insisted for a great big chunk of that time that I’m
not an artist, really.
So yeah, I am SO not allowed to get mopey about not being a real artist anymore. There never was any kind of “gap” or lost years in that sense.
Why is it such a big deal? Why did that nag me for so long, keep me talking about it over and over, and why didn’t I eventually just say “so what?” and move on? Because really and truly it’s what I am and I had to get right with that on all planes. Which took a while. Even though it was/is obvious to everyone else. It’s laughable, really. Good thing I have a very very persistent Muse that never listens much to what I think.
Now for the renaming, sizing, and thinking about what will be useful right away. I will spend two hours on that, take a gym break, and then spend the rest of the afternoon in the studio.
