Sketchbooks, Part 2

You may remember that my BFA was not the BFA I started making, the one I spent a semester working on. 

I had an idea, something I'm still interested in, but the process was all wrong. My department wanted us to come up with our thesis--to decide what we wanted to prove through our work--and then make the art. I don't do that. I like to have an idea, make things, and then figure out what I'm really saying, and make changes, and make more work.

My department's process, which makes sense for doing long term projects like animations based on a linear narrative. But when you dabble in other materials and processes, your ideas are a little chaotic. I lost a lot of sleep trying to make sense of what I wanted to do.

I tried to work on a thesis. I spent weeks thinking and writing and re-writing. But it was all wrong. I just needed to make things.

And I needed to listen to people that made sense. I needed to listen to artists I respected. And stop wasting time listening to advice that was irrelevant.

After 8 weeks, at my midterm, I strongly considered changing my idea (to what it ended up being). But I figured I should tough it out. I spent 8 weeks already researching, and maybe I just was in a funk. I figured it would work out eventually.

But I was working too hard. And running out of time. I had little work to show related to my BFA, besides research and writing, and the writing was stale. It wasn't what I wanted to say or how I wanted to say it. And I was in denial.

And luckily, 6 days before my Midyear presentation (a big critique of BFA work done so far in the fall semester), right before the student holiday sale, and right in the middle of final critiques, I had a studio visit with someone who had great advice. And he called me out on it. He told me that he wasn't sold, and he didn't think this is what I wanted to do. And I didn't argue.

The process, which wasn't working for me at all, got me too far away from my original idea. It didn't feel right anymore. It wasn't what I wanted to do. So I had to step back. Way back.

I had a lot of ideas of bodies of work, but the time wasn't right for all of them. And Monday night at 9pm, just 15 hours before I was required to turn in a copy of my Midyear presentation files, I figured it out. But more about that later.