week four: on tangibility

I have an exciting announcement: I’m writing this at noon!! Yes, I’m just as shocked as you — I thought I’d have to go through some anime training montage nonsense to get to this point, but I guess I’m just that good at what I do. (/s)

Things are speeding up! This is the first week I was satisfied with the work I got done. Not to say that the work I was doing the first three weeks wasn’t just as important (as I must regularly remind myself), but I have always been one for tangible results. This is a value of mine that regularly conflicts with the artist in me, which excels in bringing about intangible effects. For someone who seems to constantly investigate the grey area, you would think I’d be the first to denounce the value of “black and white”, but I can’t help but think less of that which isn’t tangible and obvious. I can see this affecting my larger views of myself and my value as an artist, and it also affected how I’ve been looking back on my work. If not for these weekly reflections I wouldn’t be able to remember doing anything worthwhile before week four.

Even though I’m past the emotional hurdle that haunted me the first few weeks, and I can expect to only produce more and more tangible results each week, I don’t want to take this as an excuse to forget about those intangible, quiet moments, crying and talking and thinking. I also don’t want to forget what kept me going in those moments — community and art.

Both topics have already been covered in past reflections, but I have only begun to actually understand how valuable they are. I think it’d be cool to lean further into both concepts in this project, both in practice and as themes for the cards. That said-

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Goal for the week: Continue investigating the themes of community and art, and consider how to integrate what I’m learning about these themes into my work, overtly and covertly. I will also be more intentional about reflecting on the small moments of the day-to-day work, and writing about them in this blog. This will be an actionable step towards appreciating intangible progress as much as I do tangible progress.

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Here’s to feeling what can’t be felt.

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SM