in destruction we find rebirth

It has been a day or two since I last updated this. No excuses. Have I been creating? Yes. With success? Less so. Over the past several months there has been some creative ruts, followed by bursts of ideas with poor execution or failure. On occasion (rare) success. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been focussed on making art for myself more than anyone, posting minimal stuff to social media etc. and have quite enjoyed the process. I started a photographic journal of sorts, where I have been taking a few of the pieces I have been experimenting with, and gluing them into a notebook.

random acts of violence, mixed media, self portrait.

Part journal, part creative book, part sketch, part portfolio, I have been inspired by other artists who use these types of things to success. Basquiat, etc. The other thing I have been doing is trying to not be constrained by medium. I have been making art with a wide variety of mediums recently - wetplate, paper negative, 35mm, 120, 4x5, 9x12, 4x6 and then printing a bunch, lith, traditional (haven’t done a lot of mordancage lately) and even some digicam stuff.

passage, mixed media, self portrait

And with printing, I have been tearing, cutting, sewing, painting and trying to push my creative boundaries as I see fit (I have also had some failures - I made a wetplate glass negative or two, and tried shattering them on top of a contact print, which mostly didn’t work out, and spread glass everywhere in my darkroom.

a matter of faith, silver gelatine print

Live and learn, ha). Most importantly,I have been having some fun, and feeling that I have had some success in work that I personally enjoy.

I hope (as always) to post a little more often here, especially as I try to pull away from social media (maybe more on that in a future entry).

Thanks for paying attention.