Hey there! It's been quite a while and the simulation is getting weird, but I'm back. While I wish I could say I've got tons of new content to share, the candid truth is that I don't and I have never felt so uncreative and unmotivated - hence the update.
First, let me explain my absence. In the course of the last few years I earned my Bachelor's Degree in Social Work while working several jobs and holding down an internship. Please don't misconstrue this as a glamorization of "hard work" because I'm anti capitalist AF.. I mention it only to illustrate how little spare time I had for art. Additionally, at the end of my last semester of school, I underwent a series of changes that threw me off my axis a bit: my mom passed away, I left my job, and was hired by my internship placement. Since then I've spent about a year kind of just going through the motions, if I'm being honest.
Don't get me wrong, I haven't been on a complete/absolute hiatus. Since I was last on here, I've done some zine fairs and vended a few places. After a pretty big gap, I had the urge to make something new. So in February of this year, I created greeting cards and gathered up the courage to vend again. With this momentum, I invested in a screen printing workshop (a birthday present to myself) hoping I could get this art thing going again and for a tiny bit it worked! But then came COVID, it's effects shattering the world around me, forcing the cancelation of shows I lined up, and taking with it any hope I had of getting my art gears turning. I also want to note that during this period of protests and community unrest, my refrain from sharing new work was an intentional effort to center Black voices, artists, creators, lives, etc. (You can find a plethora of resources/information on my IG highlights.)
All the while, the more time I spent away from creating, the more disconnected I became with the content I did make. Any time I tried re-visiting my once beloved characters, I felt like I was mimicking something that was no longer mine. This was discouraging, to say the least. I had once felt so represented in my drawings but now felt as if they just exist outside of me.
This brings me to today.. I'm now finding myself in a bit of a directionless predicament. I'm not exactly sure what direction my art while take, but I have some ideas and I'm excited to explore them. I've gotten some new tools/systems I can use and I am hopeful that channeling some energy in to this site will kick start my creative flow (fingers crossed). For now, I'll be posting some work I created during my "hiatus" and working to figure out how to best utilize this platform not only as a place to chronicle my process but also to uplift and support BIPOC folks and mutual aid organizations. Stay tuned.
With love and solidarity,
Kimberley
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