January 09, 2012

Artistic produtivity

I’m working on quite a few projects at the moment and although I seem to have found a bit of a groove I still have difficulty finding the right balance. My Boroughs Project, which should be one of my main projects, seems to be suffering from this the most. I’ve only managed to photograph about half of the boroughs in 2011 and the first piece is still waiting in my studio for it’s final few transfers, other stuff just gets in the way. I received a couple of commissions that off course have priority because they are paid for in advance and there are deadlines involved. And then I have my Journey project, which I’m doing together with another artist so naturally I have to keep those deadlines as well. I also want to be creating other pieces, work that is not related to either project and I’d like to have some time to experiment, do some other collages, try out new techniques, that sort of thing. 


On top of that, being a full time artist comes with a lot of secondary activities. I have to take the time to update my website, write this blog, go to meetings, be active in social media and so on. So there’s already that balance I need to find. 


Now I am in no way complaining! I love being an artists and a busy artist is a happy artist in my book! It’s just that my own personalty gets in the way sometimes. I’m a very organized person and when there’s something that needs doing I’d rather do it now, I like finishing stuff. The bad thing about that is that I can get so focussed on one thing that I kind of forget about everything else even if this one thing isn’t really the most important thing on the list. Luckily I’m aware of doing that most of the time and it’s usually best to just go with it anyways because I’ll be more productive afterwards. 


Productivity is a funny thing when you’re an artist. Most of the time you set your own deadlines so it’s hard to prove to the world outside that you’re being productive. I probably shouldn’t even want to prove that I’m productive but somehow that’s important to me. 


For now it’s just really important to me to be in my studio and create art, I’ve had so little time to do that in the last couple of months that I just feel the need to create. For now that’s my focus so if I’m ever a bit late in updating this blog, or I’m not as active on Facebook or Twitter, I’m probably in my studio painting. As I mentioned, I do seem to have found my groove. The first week of the new year has been very productive and if I can manage to keep this up this is going to be a great year!

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