with a week left until [the new 'school' term], the start of [the master's degree], the seemingly major chapter of my seemingly minuscule life about to begin, I feel [nothing]. It is not that I feel [Nothing], I just know I feel [something] that is concealing itself as [nothing]. Perhaps I feel [everything]. the mere idea of 'normalcy' has been thrown out the window, the term itself lashed into ribbons. Its state before the pandemic has never been genuine anyway. this is certainly the beginning of the end of the human race, but I wouldn't be surprised we are all still alive and unsettled when I am about to die. god forbid I reincarnate back here. human life is so funny, you can acknowledge the lawlessness and corruption all around but still make time for material things, beautiful things, art, film, music, celebrities who will never cross your path. I've been placed here on this planet, I might as well enjoy these things even if it grinds me everyday knowing I can't dismantle whole systems and that world peace is impossible. this is spoken from a place of privilege, of course. I feel for those I can't help.
it is hard to create art about more playful or strange peculiarities in the world i see when all of these global injustices are happening. it feels like I am turning away because it is the easy way forward. at the same time, I don't know if I have the capacity to make works addressing them. at the end of the day, what will that do? art should express something raw, something real, something mundane, or something serious, but it can also be the opposite of these things and become a criticism of sorts. the ways into arriving at a destination via the work sometimes doesn't require a destination at all. it could simply state, or present a truth. but in doing that you arrive.
at this particular point in time I am again at a very uncertain place in my practice. I rewrote my artist statement which was wholly true in presenting my graduate show proposal, and I still completely feed into those areas of investigation. but I haven't even delved deep in there, merely dipped into the water a bit. yet, I am now excited about another thing, and another, and I feel scattered, again. a few weeks ago I wanted to build things out of cardboard and use cheap materials to MAKE, a few days ago I wanted to put unconventional objects into fruit jellies, a few hours ago I wanted to write a poem-prose that resembled a script, and at this moment I want to bash my head against the wall. why can't I just stick to one thing and go through it with all my energy? it feels like all I do is generate ideas and not act upon them. perhaps that could be the artwork. another to make the list.
I am so fascinated by so many things I am afraid to do anything. the most challenging thing I know I have to overcome is the advice I keep getting from my tutors: 'just do it'. just pick a damn thing and do it. the infinite possibilities, all in a state of [nothing], in my head, surely can never have as great a value when it becomes [something] tangible. this feels like it could be argued, but now is not the right time. the order in which I approach varying areas of investigation is one that is probably muddled by dyspraxia. I'm feeling its presence more and more as my practice builds on, in this fragile state. am I even making good work? am I even making work? all I do is think, daydream about works I can make, and be afraid it won't be good like I pictured it. perhaps I am a perfectionist. that tentalising feeling of, if I can't make it perfect, then what's the point of doing it at all? I feel this sentiment with everything, and it is a very dangerous thought. it minimises me into [nothing], of floating in an endless abyss of [nothingness], with a fog of suffocating guilt. the pathetically funny thing is that, this is all so easily solved, you are just lazy. just do it! just do it. Just do it. do it do it do it do it do it
so I shall try.