Today I Did Nothing

There is a video circulating the 'net right now by an artist named Charlotte Young. She is speaking her artist statement, while the subtitles are "translating" her words. When she says "I am a performance artist", the words read "I like to seek out attention" or when she says, "I make videos," the text reads, "My dad got me a Macbook Pro." So, in some ways I empathized with her a lot. Then she mentions being on a hiatus (text translated to "I haven't made art in eight months") and it hit home.

The thing about making art (this is all my opinion. I make no assumptions I speak for all artists) is it is an inherently self-obsessive act. You sit in a room by yourself (or if you do socially related work, in a room where everyone is paying attention to you), do something, then present it to the world to look at. If they like it, you puff out your chest with pride at your genius. If they don't, you shrug and announce, "they don't understand me." And when you stop working, or you haven't worked in a while, or you have hit a patch of low enthusiasm, you have this kind of adrenaline crash. It's worse after an exhibition... all the excitement, the build-up, then this release, then this emptiness. Afterward, I am left wondering if I will ever make anything again.

The dumb thing is I make lots of things and I have lots of ideas (getting them all out is difficult). For a long time, I used my website as a kind of list... here is what I have been doing. If I wasn't adding new pictures to it every couple months, I felt like something was wrong. But lately, I haven't been updating my website at all, and as a result have been feeling like I haven't made work in a long, long time. I've gone on road trips, and taken pictures of my trailer. That can't be real art, because it is life. People do that all the time. It isn't special. On the other hand, I've always felt like I was interested in the everyday things that "aren't special". I made a whole series on what the light looks like as it hits the floor throughout the day. I made a whole series of the mundane, discarded portraits I buy.

I went to look at Charlotte Young's blog, and it was called "Today I Did Nothing." Even though it might be ultimately nihilistic, I sort of found comfort in the title. If I did nothing today, I could post on my blog. I could account for things.

One of my summer goals is to reevaluate my website. I like the design, but it is difficult to update, and hence, I haven't been. A number of people have suggested Wordpress, but I'm still baffled how that will make a website. It's all excuses. But if I do it, I can finally sit back and see I have done a lot since I last worked on it. That will be nice.