My dear younger friends, the few that I have spent time with, you are so full of fear, so afraid of failure, you want to be guaranteed of success before you start something new, but what if I say there is no failure. That was not an option ever for me. I just did what I did, because I was obsessed by something, and even if it did not ‘work’ at the time I never deleted it, I knew it would become part of something else.I trusted the process. Its the process that I was interested in, not its end result. I also had no choice. I had to do what I was being led to. My Go Away Closer work is made entirely of what I considered ‘sideys’ at a certain time when I was pursuing more traditional ideas of series in Photography. Imagine if I had deleted all those images as ‘failed’ images.
I cannot change what I do because you liked my Blue images, or my Calcutta portraits, if I am still obsessed with FILES I will keep photographing them, even though they have been made into a book, are part of the next book, have been shown in exhibitions, infact twice at two Venice bienales….clearly the FILES are not an end in themselves, they are leading me to some other place and its ok that I do not know exactly what that is. Maybe I will photograph FILES all my life, that no publisher or audience is interested in them cannot stop me. Its not an option.
Infact if I knew the End result, then what would be the point of pursuing it. I somehow always trust in the process.
Perhaps what has been the determining factor is that there have always been two or three people, who I have trusted implicitly. So the key could be in finding those one or two people. Both their praise and their criticism. The rest is in through one ear and out through the other. Ofcourse its a wonderful bonus when people like your work, but thats not why one does what one does. Its an inner exploration if one can dare to say such a thing.
You ask to show me your work, you ask several others, you see what most have liked and then pursue that. To me that is a way to bring the work to a mediocre level. It means you are not treading new territory. That to me is Failure. If you are not pushing your own and your mediums limits.
Failure , or its fear, would suggest you have an end result in mind. But if you are in the enquiry mode, the exploration mode, then there is no question of failure. You are seeing what the work brings you too. So even if it sounds like pop psychology, I would say trust in the process. And if thats not why you are pursuing the life of an artist, then you have some rethinking to do.
Its not easy being an Artist. Your struggles, your confusions are really your own, no one else can bring you out of them. And believe me, they never go away. Infact the day one stops doubting oneself, the day one stops learning, would be the day to call it quits.
Its about the enquiry my friends, not success and failure. Those two words are aspirations for some other kind of work, not the life of an Artist.
And this is really my humble opinion, you must form your own.
Good luck Good Chance
That helped me!
Reblogged this on Carys Ellen Fyson and commented:
Inspirational post that gives you something to think about!
Thanks for this simple TRUTH. I guess the only factor which defines the creation is our love towards this and accept this with all its challenges. Our so called struggle starts when we set expectation out of our creations.
i know that you’ve spoken for a lot of us who’ve walked together dreaming and exploring. will share it with my brood, to reinforce how joyous my meanderings have been and inspire me, still. stay safe and be well.