I had the opportunity to do allot of thinking on the drive back from my dad's yesterday morning. A three hour drive that turns into four gives you plenty of time to roll things around in your head. As they say a brain, ok I guess they say a mind, is a terrible thing to waste. I like to keep my mind as active as possible, sometimes to the detriment of society. One of my rules of the road is to not think too much when dodging trailer trucks on an interstate. So much for another rule, that and the do not text while driving rule. I get yelled at for that one all the time.
One thing I was dwelling on was the current debate inside my head about painting and photography. At some level I still have the need to paint, I still think of composition ideas to the point of mixing colors and testing paints. But I never seem to be able to pull the trigger on a project. I have friends and relatives telling me all the time that I need to paint and I do want to. I had to laugh Saturday night when I was talking about it with my dad. He said maybe I should come home over Thanksgiving, lock myself away, and spend a couple days painting like I used to do. Little does he know what went on behind that locked door. Ooops!
On the other hand I am now almost constantly taking photos, sometimes dozens a day, most of which get deleted. But I so enjoy looking for that one shot out of those dozens. I suppose it fills the need I have to create, to find that thing that I look at and say I made that and it's good. Maybe that is arrogant or egotistical on my part but I love that feeling. It's honestly like a drug to me, a brief high; it fuels my drive to create.
I'm not sure where I am going with this but than I guess that is exactly the point. I really don't know where I am going artistically. I do know a couple things. A DSLR camera doesn’t smell nearly as good as acrylic paints and I will never, ever, enjoy taking a photo as much as I do locking myself away for a few days to paint.
Time will tell
Skillet - Awake and Alive
[warning - Tomorrow is a very important election day. If you are reading this and old enough (sorry sis, next year!) and don't vote that dark clad tall girl might come knocking at your door again. This time no bag of Kit Kats will save you.]
I also do a lot of hand-wringing about choice of artistic medium and how I spend the precious time I can allocate towards creative activity.
ReplyDeleteAnd I've also been quite seduced by the complete lack of friction in digital photography . . . never separated from a device that can capture images and and absolutely no incremental cost for storage.
On the plus side, it keeps my artistic eye activated because I'm always scanning for photo opportunities. But I've also noticed that I'm a lot more indiscriminate in what I end up shooting and sometimes satisfy myself with a lot of marginal shots rather than going through the effort of creating something from scratch or setting up a scene to shoot rather than just capturing the candids.
I totally understand, I think the photography just offers an instant gratification that is just so hard to resist. I rarely take 'set piece' shots in rl, the exact opposite of how I am in sl. I take a lot of random shots a than go through them
ReplyDeletePainting is so different. I can do a painting in just days or even hours but the preparation sometimes goes on for a long time. My last painting was in and out of my mind for months.
Deciding which way to push myself is a constant struggle I seem to be having. I'll probably never decide on one direction or the other.
I get my best ideas when I'm travelling around, or just before falling asleep, which is very frustrating! Since I can't draw or paint, photography is the thing for me, after my writing.
ReplyDelete