I am really lucky in the fact that I get to make things and use the creative part of my brain everyday. But every now and then, I get the urge to do something that is considered a little more “fine arty”. After all, that is more in line with what I have been trained to do. I miss having the time to just creatively play without a care as to whether an idea is going to work out. I do design things for klt:works much in that fashion, but for right now, I am working on ideas that have been pretty much solidified… there is not a lot of mystery about my day to day process.
Admittedly, I have been feeling a bit burned out lately and I needed a little artistic recharging. The camera has been really great for this. I find it is just what I need right now to get me thinking about other interests. A little background to my week: my mom takes care of Sayer 3 days a week so that I can work. During this time I scoot and get as much done as I can- it is a multitasking frenzy. Well, my parents are now on vacation and on the last day my mom took care of Sayer last week, I gave myself 1.5 hours to play. I knew it was one of the only times I would have to do it and I had an idea in mind. I wanted to play with an untraditional series of self portraits – partly because over the years, I have started to hide from the camera. Both literally and figuratively, I wanted to do this by way of reflection. Because this is a sketchbook, I thought I would share a little of the process.
At the base of the stairwell leading to my studio, there is a cluster of mirrors. I was noticing how cool it was that I could see different parts of my body in different mirrors. I started taking photos of it and found after the fact, that I liked the ambiguous, and dreamlike quality in each mirror. I started cropping them down as their own single image (which is what is pictured in the collages). The look I was after was of an old piece of film, found in the attic… all scratched and worn- sort of like an old silent film. I think the coolest thing about all of it, is that it completely held my attention and the 1.5 hours flew by in a wink on an eye.
Before I finished, I went outside and took a few photos in the window of our shed. There is thick, black plastic behind the window so I got some cool rippling in the image. After playing a bit, I got this picture of me behind the camera that I sort of like. I think all of the images that were taken, have a painterly quality about them, which is what appeals to me. The coolest part of this little experiment however, is that it did rejuvenate me and it made me realize that I need to do something like this much more often. What do you do to recharge?