Working in the studio...

I don't really get scared of blank pieces of paper, but I don't like them much, either...

Following up on some thoughts from the last post - specifically those about the anxiety of not doing anything - I was amused to come across Jenny Diski's essay in the New Statesman, Learning How to Live. Of the tension between creative labor and real work, Diski writes:

Children are always being told to stop doing “nothing” when they’re reading or daydreaming. It is lifelong training for the idea that activity is considered essential to mental health, whether it is meaningful or not. Behind the “nothing” is in part a terror of boredom, as if most of the work most people do for most of their lives isn’t boring. The longing people express to be doing “creative” work suggests that they think it less boring than other kinds of work [...] Creative work sits uneasily in the fantasy life between dread leisure and the slog of the virtuous, hardworking life. It’s seen as a method of doing something while doing nothing, one that stops you flying away in terror. 

The first six drawings of the summer are up, and I have met with a woodworker who can help with making the large panels I want to complete this fall. I am also been at work almost completely in the digital studio on a side project that I will be able to post in a day or two...I really don't want to spend too much time on the computer, but it's almost impossible to avoid these days as it touches on so many things.

I have also been exploring a new way of working on the cut up writing - instead of trying to come up with entire sentences, I have been recombining fragments into phrases that I can hook up into larger units. I think these need to become more complex to be successful (a freind who visited the studio the other day said "they look like Ed Ruscha, but good"). It's kind of a case of somthing small being easy and almost requiring a more sustained effort to be worth attention...

There are suddenly a lot of deadlines looming, and the start of classes has made me aware of the time line of the semester in a slightly anxiety-inducing way...I'll have new pictures up soon...