Friday, January 25, 2008

On Believing with '-ist', Being with '-er'

Hi all-

That's my cat Ralph. Just giving the model credit.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what happens when you put '-er' at the end of a verb and call yourself that. What does calling myself 'writer' or 'photographer' or 'drummer' mean? What does it do to my expectations about the work. Gaping Void, in its ongoing 'How to Be Creative' series, talks about what happens to your work when you 'make it'. I'm talking about the step before that.

What happens to your work when it becomes 'you work' and not just something fun you do. Something that takes up your time. What's the difference between you owning your art and your art owning you back? I feel the expectations rise every time I get really into something and start calling myself a 'something-er'. I'm going to actively avoid that kind of language for a while. Let myself be a 'scientist and artist' and letting anything in between those poles come my way.

-A

1 comment:

Faisal said...

Hey there,

I came across your blog site in search of some resources on Innovation and saw that you have Linked to one of my favorite articles from Gaping Void. However the page is no more available and hence it motivated me to write a new and updated article.

Hope you would like it :)

Here’s the link for your reference - The Challenged Millennial