I have described myself as a multidisciplinary artist, ever since I looked up the meaning of “interdisciplinary” and learned that it meant to collaborate with people in other disciplines, which ain’t me.
Sketchbook, Sept 2021 (This also ain’t me!)
What it means in practice is that I’ve always got the vague feeling I’m neglecting something. When I have a great day with my watercolors, the other media are tapping on shoulder. Hi gouache and acrylics! I see you there, collage materials, printmaking supplies. And oh my God the fiber — embroidery and weaving, and crocheting — and when was the last time I bound a book? I love all these things. Beyond media, I often like to work expressively and I sometimes crave working technically and representatively. (And I’m not even going into how I feel about writing.)
I’m not good at working in different ways at the same time, though. I go through phases where all I do is collage, and then all I do is crochet, and then all I do is weave, and so on. There’s a re-acclimatization period, where I remember what I did before, and am mad at myself for almost forgetting what I’d learned before, and vow to never let it happen again. Then I produce a bunch and learn a bunch…and then I feel my interest start to wane, my fingers start craving a different kind of production. After a few days of feeling depressed and lost, I’m on the to the next thing.
Sketchbook, Sept 2021. Them/They.
What’s nice about getting older is that I have come to realize that this is a cycle. When I get into my latest thing, I think, well, now all I do is weave or whatever, and I shall never make collages or xyz again. (It’s bad to write artists statements and so on, in this mindset.) It’s very dramatic to feel this way, and nice to realize, at least somewhere in the back of my mind, that my experience is that it will fade and come around again in its time.
Right now, I’m into making portraits, aiming for a kind of likeness. Working more technically than I generally do. I think this is possibly seasonal — I know I did this last Fall too. It feels like back-to-school, traditions of the academy and so on. (Not that my work achieves this, obviously and of course, I’m proudly self-taught and I think it shows.) Of course, I think this is now what I do! And if you come back in a few days, weeks or months…you will see I’ll be on to my next love.