Day 333

I've been extremely pleased the past couple drawings, and most of them from the last two weeks or so. It's very strange, but to use an extremely cliched term, I literally feel like I'm in some kind of "zone" where art-making flows almost effortlessly from my hand and onto the paper. It's a pretty great feeling!

In one of my classes, I speak about how art can be many things. One of these is the fact that art and art-making satisfies the personal needs of a person not only as an artist, but also as a human being. In this case, however, I'm thinking specifically as an artist. During most of the past several nights, I was nearly exhausted when I finally had the chance to sit down to make the day's self-portrait and I was certain that it would merely be a two-minute sketch with loose marks scrawled across the paper as nothing more than a hurried completion of the day's required artwork. But once I actually put pencil (or pen) to paper, something interesting happened: the exhaustion faded away and I was overcome with a vigor that pushed me to go beyond just the bare minimum and make an artwork that would matter to me...and hopefully to others.

All I can say is this: I love being an artist. In many ways, it is not just what I am, but who I am. I think that's a pretty cool feeling...

#333 September 18, 2011,  Pen
Sounds:  Jeff Black, Honey and Salt