I’ve been talking for probably months about how photography has fallen to the wayside for me. How I’m feeling very disconnected from it.
I could list a few reasons that, to their credit, make a lot of sense as to why that might be, but identifying them hasn’t helped me feel the way I once did about photographing. Every time I pick up my camera I feel self-conscious and distracted with it in my hands, and I end up hating what I make.
Like a friend that’s drifted away, I miss it greatly. I still love the art form when I separate myself from it, but my admiration for others’ photos has turned to jealousy the longer I’ve been unable to make the medium click for me.
I still think of this disconnect as temporary, but it’s taking an unexpectedly long time to work through. What I assumed would be months I’ve now accepted might be years. I’ve been considering what life might look like if it never resolves. Thankfully, in this period I’ve found other forms of art-making that feel better for me. So, this week I thought I’d officially reflect on what my art practice looks like right now, since it’s much different from any art practice I’ve had before.
To break it down temporally: Each month I attend a few figure drawing nights with my friends Julia and Meg. I present my loyal Instagram following with one or two saves dumps. Somewhere in there I might work on a painting.
Weekly, without fail, I plan Sunday’s Run Club workout and translate it into a poster. This looks like pencil sketching the composition, coloring in the shapes, and then cleaning it up in Photoshop. It usually takes a few hours, and I really enjoy the defined structure I get to play within.
Weekly, with some increasing level of failure, I throw together a newsletter. I draw some tattoo flash. I give myself a tarot reading or two.
The only things I truly do daily are brush my teeth, wash my face, feed myself, open Instagram. In January I began a daily yoga practice, which I missed chunks of in March and April, but have mostly stuck to and feel substantial benefit from. In relation to my art practice, I understand yoga as a somatic solution to releasing blockages, maintaining fluidity, honing my intuition.
My newer forms of art-making are more physical, more analog than what I’ve done most of my life. They’re still intuitive, but more grounded in developing a skill. Photography has always been a game of accidents for me, sometimes patience, often theft. I admit drawing and painting involve all three of those, but with something else too. More ownership, maybe. Certainly less baggage, less expectation, less pressure.
When a painting is finished I feel it. When I make a photo, it stays in the back of my mind, waiting to be manipulated and applied in a hundred different contexts. It cannot end.
With photography, and I’ll add writing as well, I feel like I know too well the mechanics of how they work. I can’t anymore feel my subconscious running loose, transmutating my uncomfortable feelings into something I can live with. These more physical mediums have somehow felt more authentic and effective, while being less revealing, which I appreciate.
Previously I thought of my art practice as somewhat separate from my life. I made art that reflected on my relationships and the things I was going through, but the practice itself was always time set aside. For the last few months – and I’ll give Run Club a good deal of credit for this – my art practice feels very intertwined with my life. Now, my practice is usually in service of, or a byproduct of participating in my community. What I used to think of as work I was putting in to “be an artist”, I’m now understanding as just another component of the way I live – a functional extension of myself and a method of expression in my normal communications.
–––
Is that enough of a conclusion? I can’t think of anything else to say. Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. I’m running another half on Sunday. I’m tattooing now. (Let me give you one!) I look forward to updating you all on everything as it comes :) Thanks for being here.
Jordan