Creative reset

Out for a walk this evening, taking in the Whitstable sea air and marvelling at the rich and crisp sunset, I began to think about my blog. This page. An aspect of my creative practice that I've allowed to become neglected in recent years. Several years ago, I cleared much of this pages' content and purged everything I thought was unworthy of publication, or not representative of who I am as an artists now. I opted instead for the easy and ubiquitous instagram. Although the mighty insta' clearly has it's upsides,  the sheer number of people you can reach instantly being the main one. But I'm beginning to feel that its addictive quality and my slavish obedience to its algorithm is doing me no good and tricking me into thinking I'm progressing artistically. Now this is not to say that I'm not a busy and active creative professional, just that Instagram has cleverly and subtly derailed my ability to curate and record my work properly.

Scrolling through the last four years of instagram posts, it's rather overwhelming for me, the sheer volume of work that has been put down half way finished is telling. Often halted to take a quick snap, 'Work in progress' I often entitle posts, followed by getting distracted by the subsequent likes.... and follows, starting something else, or just getting lost again in a seemingly endless stream of great art, interesting images and... well, just about anything that can distract me from my mission. The sum total of my instagram page is an interesting and eclectic body of work from one perspective, but click on the link to my store, and you'll be met with very little, a ghost town basically. How has this happened I ask myself, how have I made so much work and finished such a small fraction of it. Clearly something is missing from this artists' practice, and clearly something needs to change.

As a day job I make super real Zbrush sculpture, toy prototypes, 1/6 scale likeness heads, props, miniatures, and collectables, and have done for the last sixteen years. This brings with it a very honed focus and attention to detail, so in many ways, not wanting to be too harsh on myself, I've been slowly but surely doing my 10,000 hours. I think having this anchor of a daily sculptural practice and a thriving freelance career has been the bedrock of my sanity at times. There comes a time though for someone who calls them-self an artist, and feels like one in his bones, to recenter, take stock of all the experience gained and point in a direction. I feel like the mild addiction to posting unfinished 'WIP' work on instagram has to be interrupted for me to progress as an artist. One thing I believe that applies to all aspects of life, is that you should start from where you're at now, with optimism and clarity and commit fully to the things that feel nourishing. 

So what's this mission, I'm asking myself? It's been so long since I've asked myself this question, I've forgotten what the answer is. Put simply, now I've been mulling it over, it's to develop a creative direction that is focused and satisfying, and to begin to tighten up my raison d'etre as and artist. This blog is about that process unfolding, where as on instagram, to my detriment I'm chasing those likes and views, here I'm recording who I actually am creatively in long form. My artistic endeavours have taken many directions over the years, but central to it all has been a love of drawing and sculpting, loose paintings and a curiosity with character, I have at least 50 full sketchbooks as proof. I want to forget art genres for now, forget hashtags and spend more time making art and recording where that takes me..