(#5) Am I a Blogger Now?
I think it’s time for blogs to make a comeback.
It dawned on me that I never explained why I started a blog. It just happened randomly. I wish I could say there was some great impetus that led me to the blogging lifestyle. In reality, it’s been brewing for months, perhaps even years. I had in my mind while creating my website that I wanted a blog. Have I ever had a blog before? No. During a time when media is shifting towards video-centered content, why make a blog like it’s 2005? I’m here to explain.
In order to understand my motivations, we must go back in time to 2012. I was around twelve years old with a smile full of crooked teeth and navigating the oh-so-awkward sixth grade. Each morning before school, I composed a page long story for my friends to read at lunch. By the end of the school year, I had written over 100 pages and developed quite the complex storyline and created some charismatic characters (to give a taste, imagine Barney the dinosaur–except I couldn’t remember how to spell dinosaur so he was “Barney the Purple Thing”—but he has a phobia of vampires and Robert Pattinson, a slightly disturbed girl named Sally GoneMad who feuds with an old businessman, a gang of demented cats in constant search of new owners, a very insecure Clifford the Big Red Dog who wants to sell tanning booths, and other characters writing letters to each other with a twisted sense of humor and the occasional baking competition. Honestly, I wish I could publish it because it’s pretty funny but I used too many copyrighted characters).
By writing these stories, I learned to love writing. It was a great creative outlet for someone like me who has always had an active imagination. I liked writing for an audience, too, and making people laugh. Somewhere between then and now, likely as I began writing more academically, the exhilaration I got from writing disappeared. Suddenly, it was confusing, complicated, and riddled with judgement. My writing was good enough to make me a good student, but the sense of voice I had was gone. I never knew if I would find my lust for writing again. Spoiler alert: I did and that’s why we’re here.
Another thing you should know about me is that I came into college wanting to study philosophy, not art. I am wont to think, dissect, debate, and reflect. While there many reasons why I chose art over philosophy, I notice that this part of me manifests most clearly in my fixation on understanding processes in art. A couple months ago, I noticed my favorite part about posting on my art instagram was writing about art. I had ideas swirling around in my head of topics I wanted to talk about. There came a point when what I wanted to write would not fit in an Instagram caption. That’s when I knew I was ready to start this blog.
Thinking critically about art has been a key part of my education. I would say that it’s only within the past few months that I’ve had a breakthrough with art in this realm. I had a conversation about this recently with a mentor figure of mine and she described it perfectly: Understanding art is like learning a new language. First, you learn the letters and recognize sounds. Then words and meaning start to appear. Soon it becomes a satisfying, addicting game about understanding the world around you and you spend your whole life playing it through creation and study.
Through writing, I learn the language of art. My primary goal of the blog is to consistently practice dissecting and comprehending art and my relationship to it in hopes of deepening my own art practice. And of course, I want to become a better writer. In all honesty, sharing my writing publicly is a bit terrifying for me. Even though I am comfortable with having my art critiqued, I’ve yet to separate my ego from my writing . I have to remind myself that at the heart of this fear is the desire for growth. So far, I’ve actually enjoyed this process. Having to write a blog every week gives my mind something productive to chew on. I like plotting how to organize ideas and string words together. It’s similar to art in a way.
Most of all, this blog is for myself. It’s a hobby I can continue after I graduate. I want to document my development as an artist and as a person as I finish school and start a career. I know I will look back on these posts one day and reminisce or maybe wince. I don’t expect people to read it. If they do, I hope they find it interesting, maybe entertaining, and perhaps educational.
So, what will I be blogging about? My plan is to discuss the process of art creation, review exhibitions I visit, share works in progress, maybe interview artists I admire, but, most of all, I want to have fun. After all, this is my blog and I can do whatever I want with it.
See you next week!
(P.S. Please don’t call me a blogger. Thanks.)
