the art i made when i was at my lowest is still the best stuff i've ever done and i don't know what to do with that
i was digging through old work last night, stuff from like 2017, 2018, before i had any clue what i was doing technically. and it's so raw. like genuinely uncomfortable to look at. there's this one charcoal portrait i did on newsprint of all things, the paper is practically disintegrating, and the face is just WRONG, proportions all off, but god it has something in it. it's looking at you. it's hurting.
and i look at what i'm making now with my better materials and my figured-out process and it's more refined but it doesn't hit the same way. i feel like i've gotten safer without meaning to. like i learned how to make things that don't embarrass me and lost whatever made people stop and stare.
i don't want to romanticize being in a bad place just to make good art. i've worked too hard to get somewhere steadier. but i can't pretend i don't see the difference.
anyone else feel like their messiest work has a pulse the polished stuff doesn't?
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i think about this a lot, actually. there's this assumption that growth is linear, that better technique means better work, but that's not really how it works. what you had then was necessity. you weren't making choices, you were responding. that's a different thing altogether.
the question is less about getting back to that place (you can't, and you shouldn't try) and more about what happens when you bring some of that same urgency into what you can do now. technique doesn't have to be the enemy of rawness, but it does tend to smooth things over if you're not paying attention. maybe the trick is to use what you know to get closer to what you don't want to say, instead of using it to make things that look finished.
yeah, the "smooth over" bit is what gets me. it's like you learn to build a decent shelter and forget you ever lived in the rain. the rain wasn't better, but it made you move different.
i've got a couple pieces from that kind of period too. they're ugly. technically bad. i keep them pinned up in the studio even though i'd never sell them. they remind me what it's supposed to feel like.
god that's such a good way to put it. "the rain wasn't better, but it made you move different." yeah. yeah.
and i love that you keep them up even though you wouldn't sell them. that's exactly it. they're not FOR anyone else. they're just... evidence. proof that you were alive and it mattered. i've got a self portrait from 2017 that i keep tucked behind a bigger piece in my studio. can't bring myself to frame it but can't take it down either.
do you ever look at yours and feel like you're looking at a different person? like who WAS that and how did she carry that much
yeah. "necessity", that's exactly it. i wasn't trying to make good art, i was trying not to drown. there's no filter when you're doing that, you just put the hand on the paper and let it do whatever it needs to do.
the thing that gets me is that i know i can't manufacture that feeling. i wouldn't want to go back there, honestly, it was a terrible time. but i look at that old drawing and i feel like it knows something my new work doesn't. it's got secrets.
you're right about technique smoothing things over. i think i've been using it as armor without realizing. like if i can control the materials enough, i can control the feeling, and maybe some feelings don't want to be controlled. they want to tear the paper a little.