Why having a blog if you can’t post drunken “illuminations”? I’ve been bummed for a few days and it has been hard to know the reason of this. My head has been full of anxiety during the last month after the whole preliminary exam thing. Not really worried about the exam itself, but about the future. Last Wednesday I had my oral exam and it went incredibly well. I feel lucky to have finally found a supportive and functional PhD committee to help me move to the next doctoral student stage: the dissertation proposal.
I can’t really understand when some people complain about being a grad student… for the most part I feel like a slacker, I mean, I wake up, I make coffee, read comics, grade some projects, maybe watch a B movie and then go to class. It is not really a big deal to be a grad student. My battle hasn’t been in the actual work, but in my mind. As an artist, what should I do next? Why am I sitting on my ass so much? I don’t even know what to do now. I found some interest exploring new ways of doing art and was happy with the results of purely visual and abstract compositions. At some point, I felt that they were very valuable and innovative works, but now I don’t even know what to think about them. I mean, a part of me wants to make art my own way, disregarding the ridiculous and glamorous art world, but at the same time, I feel the need to validate my work. What have I done? I don’t even know what I want. Knowing what you want is the most important thing for reaching your goals, but now my goals are gray and confusing. I can’t tell what they are, and that makes me loose motivation. I really hope this changes!
Anyways, part of my thoughts have been revolving around making meaningful connections and leaving behind some digital networking. I feel that publicizing my work in the so-called social networks hasn’t been very successful and that, everybody is using the same methods. I am trying to break this cycle, and do things without expecting to have # of comments, “views” or “hits”, but it has been hard… I feel isolated, and unmotivated. I was just looking to some of the pictures of the events from Radio Chiguiro in 2006 and it was great because it was about making work and not about the consequences. It was great to make meaningful work for a community. I have high hopes that foamcity will bring this type of creative and artistic force to a fulfilling experience.