Day 21 of Year 3
One of the challenges of making art publicly is staying true to your inner voice. Praise can sometimes be a bit of a siren song. Once an artist knows something sells or gets a good response, there is a natural and unconscious tendency to want to continue to produce work that pleases. I've been pouring over the older images in this project in preparation for my book. In the past, I often worked one theme sometimes for weeks. Today I realized that recently I have been unconsciously limiting that practice because I'm worried people might get bored. Luckily, now that I am aware of this, I can release that behavior. I want to listen completely to my inner creative flow without imposing external control. My time in the studio is always a spiritual training and I find that usually external limits come from a place of fear. So tonight's images feel very risky to me, they are different and I'm not sure if they are good, but I'm putting them out there anyway. This project shows what happens on a nightly basis, the good, the bad and the ugly- it's all a necessary part of the process. xo
Print 1: mask
Print 2: polishing the mirror (ghost of the underlayer of image 1)