performing art vs creating art

there’s tension the minute i walk into my studio each day—it’s not creative anticipation though. it’s the question: to film or to just have fun?

the tension that i feel when i walk into my art studio these day—it’s palpable. it’s not the unfinished papers and canvases, or even the messy, semi-controlled chaos of a space that i’ve outgrown. it’s the moment of deciding, am i going to have fun in the studio today or am i going to film today? on the surface level, it’s stupid—i have fun doing just about everything, including filming content and taking photos of my work in process. but i have way more fun when i can just turn up my sometimes cringey music, have a dance party and not think for one moment about how i look at that angle, if someones going to be staring down my shirt instead of at what i’m making or if i’m showing a piece that feels more privates, that’s not ready for the internet or any comments yet. i think a lot of people, in creative professions or not, feel something akin to this these days—this limbo between performing art vs pure creation. and i honestly hate it.

i feel this tension in other, broader strokes of my life too—the delta between what looks good and what feels good—and as an aesthetically inclined person, this hits me hard at times. from makeup that photographs beautifully but doesn’t feel as good as clean skin, to shoes, to furniture, to the aesthetic value of your coffee order. aesthetics can almost feel like a sickness at times, this desire to constantly curate the world around you into the most visually pleasing possible environment. i say that with a sense of humor as my life is far from perfect and i know there are far worse afflictions (and this i truly find enjoyable most of the time), but there’s a kernel of truth to it. nowhere have i noticed this more so than in my art and in my new life sharing a home with three teenage boys. it’s so easy to spend every moment at my house picking up, cleaning, curating an experience and dare i say it, a vibe, instead of actually living in the moment. my claim would be that i enjoy living in the moment more when the environment around me is pleasant, which is true…but it’s not always the reality of the situation.

but back to the art. i think back to when i was in school, getting my degree in art history and literature—as part of my curriculum, i was also in studio art classes. i would spend hours each day in the beautiful, light-filled group studio, in my own world, never thinking to record or even photograph the process of what i was making, never in the back of my mind wondering if a certain experimental style or color palette or new technique would elicit positive (or negative) comments. it felt like such freedom creating without a real audience. it’s not that i have a huge audience now either, but posting things on the internet at large is a tricky proposition, full stop. there’s also the influx of well-curated visuals constantly flooding my instagram the moment it, all things algorithmically aligned with my preferred colors, styles, mediums…and comparison can become a real thing.

in short, i took a few months off from photographing or recording anything about my art and it was freeing—i felt the joy slowly, surreptitiously, creeping back in. it’s so easy to thrive off of the external affirmations, but i believe the life of an artist is about bringing the deepest internal corners of yourself and how you see the world into reality—which also, at least to me, means being intrinsically motivated by the process of putting your heart on paper. in many ways, it’s the opposite of capitalism—which i have a lot of thoughts and strong opinions on—when you’re building something that is not necessarily aligned with meeting or serving a market-created demand. but those are thoughts for another day.

if you create stuff, really of any sort, i’d be curious to hear your thoughts on performing art/creativity/whatever vs actually doing the thing.