December Round-Up

I have been questioning my creative process lately, and I have been having ongoing conversations with other creatives as well. 

Social media is a game-changer, and frankly, I think has been encouraging what could be considered a renaissance of artistic expression and creation—absolute abundance flows and pours out of platforms like Instagram and Facebook every single day. I have Instagram to thank for connecting me to the majority of artists I have worked with, many of whom I am now honored to call friends. It creates a ripe home for artists to receive + give support, create connection, and draw inspiration.

But can we really take in and appreciate the depth of what people are creating, if we are merely scrolling through? Is it possible to ingest the sheer quantity of images that are being produced without them seeping into our subconscious, and in turn, we simply echo what we have already seen? It sometimes feels like scrolling through Instagram is like walking down a hall of mirrors.  

So, how do we maintain meaning in our art? 

When I first began this journey, my images were ripe with meaning. Whether or not that was/is visible to the audience, the photographs I was creating were so powerful for me in my personal journey of liberation—from generational puritanical shame, from fear of the power of my full expression, from parental expectation of who I should be, from the pressure I felt to play small in order to make others comfortable. I was becoming a woman, a wild one at that. Connected to my own intuition, my own power. It felt vulnerable, brave, powerful; a catalyst that fueled my spiritual journey to continue shedding and unlearning the notions that were keeping me caged, on my way to embodying the woman I am today. 

My images no longer really function that way for me—I feel that my wildness has metabolized into my bloodstream. I don't need to verbalize it so much anymore; it is simply now a part of who I am. But this begs the question for me: what next? I want my art to always be an exploration, one that pushes me to dance at the edges of my being and find what waits for me there. 

I know that winter is calling me to rest. Rest is what allows for rebirth. Perhaps I do not need to know what the next step is in my creative journey, quite yet. Perhaps I simply need to allow myself to burn into ashes as the phoenix does, to be born again in the next year. 

I release myself from the pressure to be productive all year round, and instead honor the importance of the seasons, and trust that rest is necessary for evolution and growth.