Ugghhh...

So I've been checking out a ton of different artists. Everyone I can, from the classics up to the unknowns. It's been interesting because sometimes I'll look at something and think, "Damn...that's wicked cool." And I'll get real excited for the upcoming school year. Other times it's more like, "Shit...I'm never gonna measure up." And I enter a state of depressed frustration.

I try not to let it get me down because I know I'm still unschooled, but my lack of skill really hinders my growth. I often feel stuck in this rut of abstract design because I still lack the figurative training.

Now don't get me wrong...plenty of great works of art lack a clear sense of figure or form, but realistically I feel like a sell out or a hack when I paint these limp, 2 dimensional forms. Hell, I feel like a friggin fraud when I make abstracts. Not to say I don't feel good about some, but on the whole it's as though I'm kidding myself.

I recently contributed 4 of my earlier paintings to a benefit fund raiser for a couple friends of mine whose apartment burned out a couple days before Christmas. It was just a raffle, but the people who put tickets in and won the paintings seemed pretty satisfied. Of course, they were all to some extent friends of mine that up until that point didn't know I painted. So, were they in fact surprised and therefore felt the need to show exhuberance toward my endeavors? Or were they genuinely into the paintings themselves as autonomous works of art?

I dunno...

Just gotta ride out the depressive fits of self-deprication and continue working. School starts February 1st.

-PAK