Sat 31 May, 10:00 am
I just watched June's new video I finished two sketchbooks in three weeks and immediately felt the urge (as I always do after their sketchbooking videos) to start a new sketchbook of my own. The title of this post is a bit of a lie, I'm an artist. I draw a lot. I have two sketchbooks currently- though one is also my uni notebook so it's 30% class notes, 50% project planning (it's own genre of sketching), and 20% really good drawings that I do when I'm bored and always end up way better than anything I do in my 'actual' sketchbook.
It's been a while since I finished a sketchbook, the one I'm currently on I've been using for about two years now. I don't tend to keep track of when I start / finish my sketchbooks, but that's definitely much longer than it usually takes me to fill one up.
Maybe part of that is that my hyperfixations have shifted towards things that I don't actually have much interest in drawing. I've been watching more and more anime, and I don't have the skills or desire to draw in that style. Not that I dislike it at all (as previously stated, it's something I'm continually hyperfixated on), it just doesn't suit my sick furry swag B) ie. I don't know human anatomy, lmao.
Last night I drew some of my anime boys as furries though, and that was a really formative moment I think. It's not the first time, but it is the first time I realised that I'm not the only freak who will think that drawing is cool. I love weird gay people who live in my phone :]
There's definitely an element of social media (and perhaps art school) having messed with my motivations for drawing (and making art more broadly). Posting on instagram for a few years got me used to making art specifically intended to share and receive immediate gratification for doing so. It's insanely rewarding, and so far very far removed from the creative process.
I include getting feedback on my art from uni as a part of this problem too. Even though I do really value the feedback from my teachers and peers, and it's a good demonstration of the process of making art for a gallery, that's not really what I want for my work. And the truely detrimental part of this process is the structure of assessments. Getting a grade on a piece of art always kills the soul, even when it comes from someone who truely appreciates your work and means their criticism only with the best intent. Reducing an artwork to a number is honestly inhumane, and my best professors usually agree, even as they have to continue to work in this structure.
Anyway, now that I've circled back to posting art on social media, I'm really considering the personal costs and benefits that sharing my art online has. I was pretty happy to never post my art online again (especially since in the time I stopped posting the whole ai trend has arisen). So why did I start again? Quite simply, I found people I wanted to show my art to. Trust me, I would not be on twitter at all if there wasn't a specific community of people I found on there that I'm glad to be a part of.
But just like grades, posting art online has a cost. It reduces your work to a single post. A number of interactions. I gain the most joy from posting when I can conceptualise it as individual people interacting with my work.
If I was in a room with the 2-5 people who have left comments on any one of my drawings, and they said to me in person what they told me online, I would be overjoyed. Filtered through social media, social interactions don't feel real. This isn't just my mutual leaving some kind words, this is a post with 0 replies, 0 retweets, 0 likes and 7 views, until I respond and it has 1 reply, 0 retweets, 1 like and 9 views (I still don't understand how the view count works)
Reducing not only my artwork to a series of numbers (ranging anywhere from 4 - 24 - 104 - 1.2k to 0 - 1 - 2 - 37, it's just like running a slot machine), but the feedback I get on it to that as well? It doesn't just kill the soul, it rips it out of my chest and replaces it with a poorly conceived imitation of basic human interaction.
And even knowing all this, I still want to post. Not just because it still remains true that this is the best way to share my art with the eyes I want to see it, but because when that imitation of social interaction hits in the right way? I feel genuine joy. It's much more than just 'big number make happy', because it's not the specific number that makes my day. Honestly, getting any more than 10 likes on a post immediately becomes surreal. I can't conceptualise that many people ineracting with anything I do. It's the little notifications that pop up throughout day that really get to me. It feels like not only are these people seeing my work that I put my heart and soul into, they're taking the time out of their day to tap me on the shoulder and say hey. That was pretty neat.
It feels like my art is finally worth something. If not monetary value, then at least social value, undeniably proven by the three digit number on my screen. It makes me feel secure the same way seeing three digits in my bank account balance does. Like I'm finally participating in society like a normal person. Like it doesn't matter that I'm queer or autistic or generally socially awkward and isolated, I have concrete, provable worth- and by society's own standards, not those by the minority of people who actually value me as a person.
It's intoxicating. It's a tiny, minuscule taste of what it feels like to actually live normally in the world, to smile at the people I pass on the street without fear that my hair looks weird, or they don't like my outfit, or that I'm somehow not walking in the right way, or that they'll recognise me as a filthy tranny and decide to beat me to death. None of those anxieties are justified, and I'm fortunate that is true, but they're fears that I can only truely sake when engaging in social interaction while its filtered through the internet.
Online, I don't have to consciously move my face into the 'friendly' position, I can just say :] or :3 or share a meme. Online, I have control over how I present myself, not just by moderating the words I say and images I chose to share, but by limiting the people I enable to interact with me. If I say something that somebody doesn't like, or see someone I don't want to interact with, or even someone who actively wants to harm me, I'm in no real danger. I have half a dozen means to remove them from my digital space, and if nothing else, the safety of a screen (and likely, an entire ocean) between me and that individual.
Wasn't this post about sketcbooking? I didn't really have a point there. I guess this is just a reflection on my motives for making art, at the moment. I feel most motivated to create when I have the encouragement of people around me, but that motivation doesn't carry me through an entire project. Social media enables me to continually go back to the source to drink from that well once more, but it dries up much faster than I expect. People just aren't interested in hyping up an idea more than once or twice, and I really shouldn't be relying on them to in order to complete the things that I want to make for myself.