Why am I blogging? A young (hey I'm still young) 21st century artist's tale.

Well, here I am writing a web log. Why am I doing this? I am not one to do things because everyone else is. And I am not someone who writes things that I mean for others to read. In fact, I have very little patience for words (pictures say so much more). Don't get me wrong, I have an absolute adoration for the spirit of the published word (especially books). I even work at a fabulous library. But reading anything other than an informative text on a subject I wish to learn about can be torture. Take poetry for example...blech. Or heady philosophy and theory...yawn. I have come to terms with the fact that if I have to struggle to decipher the meaning of dense layers of verbiage, I just don't have the attention span. Say it simply or say it to someone else. I'll be over here drawing a picture.

So why in the world am I on Blogger writing to the world-wide community with no idea who the heck would even care what I have to say? It seems a little self-indulgent to assume that anyone will read it, and I have always considered myself a visual artist and so-very-not a performance artist. My motto is "look at my art, not at me!"

But here I am, and here are my reasons. After a very long time as an art student (15 years, a vocational high school for commercial art, and three universities for fine art) I am thrilled to be a graduate living as I want to in the most perfect town in the country (for me anyway). But I tend to prefer a hermit-like existence, venturing out for the necessities, and loving to curl up in my home studio with a cup of hot tea, my artist partner, and listening to the rain (about nine months of it per year here in Eugene). I do volunteer at the DIVA Center about once a month to make sure that I go out and look at art. But now that I'm not in school I am much more isolated. I certainly love the freedom I have now, but I wouldn't mind a little accountability and feedback.

Another reason for writing is that I almost exclusively make abstract art. I am filled with images and forms with indistinct meaning. That is not for a lack of real ideas, but it would be easy to get lost in the vagueness if I did not try to communicate more specific thoughts. I also have a very tough time speaking my thoughts directly to other humans (I get nervous, my vocabulary gets frozen somewhere in the folds of my mind, and I end up frustrated and withdraw further from human contact for a while). So perhaps writing will be easier.

I have been writing a personal art journal since I graduated in June 2007, and I am great at talking to myself. So I will continue to talk to myself here, and if anyone cares to listen I will be highly amused.