“If you drop a pebble in the water, the waves just go on forever...”
A nice sample/quote from an electronic song I own and love.
Kind of sums up how I feel when attempting to divine my future in this (fickle) creative industry.It's not a negative nor a positive thought.
It is simply a fact.
You start something with a thought, the thought become reality through kinetic actions. Then you have repercussions, with every action there is a reaction.
You make a choice and then you have to follow it through to the end, especially if you are a tenacious, stubborn fellow such as myself...
I begun this journey after finishing my GNVQ (or whatever it is called now)
in Art & Design, even after two years I wasn't exactly sure of myself and what or even where I wanted to go from there.
I guess I picked illustration because drawing is the major discipline in which this
style of art is cemented.
I feel it's the foundation of the house of illustration.
And since I can remember I’ve always been drawn to drawing so it was simply making that inky choice.
So I began this three year journey of self exploration.
There have been highs and lows but I guess with anything you are passionate about and which you love dearly this is part and parcel of the emotional roller coaster.
I mean you have paid the money to go on it so you might as well enjoy the highs and lows.
The anticipation of the ride before you, clunking slowly upwards to that big, first, exciting hill. Seeing the world spread out before you from a thousand feet in the air like a deity and then speeding and spiralling downwards. G-forces crushing you to your seat in pitch blackness in that tunnel called despair. Then back up again.
As I said highs and lows.
Now after it's finished the roller coaster clinks and clunks to it's inevitable end and all that’s left is the exhilaration left resonating within you. The excitement that you felt and the secret happiness that it's over for now.
But you really want to have another go, but maybe on that other ride over there? The one that's shiny red with the loops and the bigger drops and twice as fast...
So now I catch my breath and trudge towards the next exciting ride.
Do you want me to tell you about it, my avid reader?
I plan on doing another degree. My Masters to be exact. I've always said to my tutors that sometimes on this degree I’ve felt like a tiger trapped in a cage. Tigers like to explore, laze in the sun and go about their own business with a flick of the tail and purr in their throat.
It's not their fault there is a cage there, their the kindly keepers. Rather it's an institutional affair.
Men (and women in this politically correct world ) with clip boards ticking boxes making sure everything is above board and prim and proper.
Art isn't like that. It's a bit like an explosion, you can control it to a point but it still might go bang in you're face.
Where was I?
Ah yes, the Masters degree.
I do feel that it will be extremely beneficial to me. Due to the amount of control I will have on what direction I will be able to go in, I mean a tiger that has total control tends to be a happy tiger (purr).
But I digress what’s for tea? What prey will I be hunting tonight? What tasty morsel will I be feasting on?
Two styles that have come naturally over the past three years. Firstly the digital, tightly drawn style with print based flourishes thrown in (for taste and garnish) and the big meaty, primal slabs of wood I have been drawing on. I have no particular qualms in having two distinct styles because I know they overlap and act as catalysts to each other. On my next degree I will (hopefully) have two more years to experiment and tweak my practice. Also I plan on free-lancing in the industry from when I finish the illustration degree, it also happens to be one of the main box ticking you have to do on the Masters.
Hark! What is that I hear a-yonder? A box being ticked! I will take my clip board and do my little pinstripe dance!!
Since coming back from London where I pimped my wears and had a brief affair with the industry, I believe...No, I know that I have a place in the creative world, all I need to do is find a suitable place to pitch my tent and not get bent over and raped in the dark dark nights (mouse!). Hopefully after a while the tent will become a lodge and then a flat, a house and maybe if I'm lucky a mansion.
I know that brick walls will allow my bottom to be sparred from unscrupulous fat-cats but until then I will have to be dexterous and flexible to keep that virgin territory pristine and holy.
And keep my reputation.
After the Master's?
Not sure, a rough idea but for now I need to be organic and flexible.
Amen.
HAPPY TIGER!
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