Tuesday, November 8, 2011

On Artistry


Calling myself an artist feels weird. It feels self-flattering and foreign. I am navigating this new terrain where the numbing work routine is not crunching my spirit down anymore, where my tiredness comes from doing things that I am passionately invested in, not from imposed ones, and all that is left is the rawness of being with myself, at my core.

Why is it that I left my career? In the pursuit of what? This is not a question emanating from fear; on the contrary, now that I am awash of my prior paralyzing fear, I can purposely inhabit a place where my sole task is understanding and employing my sensitivity. But what does that sensitivity look like? Is it strong enough, valuable enough to compel others to gravitate towards it? How do I grasp it, understand it in a way that allows me to be authentic? Do I have that artistry or just a desire for it?

Its hard to ask myself these questions without comparing myself to those artists I admire, without feeling I'm lacking so much foundation, without sensing I'm short on all this learning. This vast world of photography that I am wandering, is defined by multiple directions one can move toward, and being aware that I must make that choice is intimidating; it dampens the joy of making a picture, it clouds my images with self-criticism and scrutiny. Photography unveils itself to me both as a clean slate, and as a place crowded with all the things I think about myself, good and bad, and with all the expectations I have of what it will bear in my life.

All in all, this process is a sort of sweet internal chaos. I don't know if this is artistry, or if I am successful in conveying what I want to convey in a photograph, but so far, each photograph I take becomes a record of what that sensitivity looks like, a depiction of that inner quarrel, of the important exploration of my desire....and that for me, artful or not, is definitely something worthwhile.