Reboot: Back to Basics

Staring down another blank page

Broke out the man-purse last week, and after a two-year hiatus, have set up shop at my favorite local cafe again. The creative juices are flowing and I've reinstated a self-imposed schedule of disciplined doodling. It's an integral part of the process, but several recent events aligned to conspire against my regular rhythms and subsequent output. So in accordance with my usual early-morning schedule, I'm usually the first customer in the door when they open. On the first session back in the proverbial saddle, I finally finished one complete sketchbook, which can now be retired to the studio, to literally draw from, added to the pile of similar repositories. I'll film a flip-through sooner than later and post a video of all the encapsulated nonsense. Another ritual was the careful adornment of the new sketchbook with some of the accumulated stickers I have stashed away for just such a purpose. Also started off the new collection with the very first image - tangentially related to scoring a second booster shot.

Page one: The inaugural doodle on a new sketchbook

Grooves have a way of turning into ruts, and despite my preferred teaching style of utilizing disruptive educational techniques in the classroom (not letting us get complacent but continually uprooting and re-contextualizing exercises out into the "real world"), I am a creature of habit. It's been a couple years now that two of my long-running local establishments to hang out with the sketchbook and work on turning over material fermenting in the mental mulch-pile have closed up shop. Gulliver's Books first got re-shelved and then finally closed it's covers, and then Sourdough Sam's also shuttered itself. These really hurt, and left big holes in the Fairbanks. It's places like these, local businesses, that are the heart + soul of a community. Not the big box stores, who's empty eyesore corporate carcasses litter the landscape of our town. They don't care, never did, never will. Not the shitty chains everybody lines up to eat shit at because it's either fresh shit, or tastes just like the same shitty food they ate in the last shitty town they lived in. And it's turning Fairbanks - metastasized into anytown USA - into a shitty place to live.

Another recent  small business casualty: logo by yers truly

Now add in the pandemic shutdowns which yanked the rug out from everybody, and ever since then I've been feeling such insidious malaise (another term is "languishing"), like I just slipped out of gear, or sit there spinning my wheels. I feel like I've lost my mojo, my drive is gone, no energy left anymore. How the hell can I inspire anybody that supposed to be teaching when I feel like one of those sad, old, and useless faculty members who just occupy space while they run out the clock until they retire. But slowly, ever so slowly I am fighting back. Even if all I have the energy for is one thing, at least that gets done. Or maybe just vacuuming + dishes is all I have time for - cut yourself some slack. There are still days I burn out right off the bat but still keep pushing, flogging the proverbial dead horse, or in this case, moose. I'm seriously behind on a couple big clients, and one thing I've really learned after the past couple years is now to say no. As in no more freelance - what little resources I have left are all going right back into my own work now. So far I've turned down a dozen gigs and it's not even at the halfway point of the year. You get so goddamned sick of the constant hustle, marketing yourself, chumming the waters as it were. It never ends. One of the big red flags is not being able to shake the resentment that you are working on stuff for someone else when all you want to be doing is working on your own thing. As well you should - it's an extension of the inner checks + balances I go through whenever facing the choice between drawing or spending time + energy on consuming other people's efforts, as in for example, watch a movie or work on your own creative output - or in the case of a lot of comics students, spend hours and hours gaming instead of producing your own content. And then you have to make the same call when invited to parties, or movies, or dinners etc. which can narrow your world considerably (not to mention strain relationships). And yet there is the silver lining in how these tasks challenge you, push you, force you to confront inner issues like performance, imposter syndrome, or just plain old discipline. This is at odds with the artsy-fartsy crowd who see art as more of a therapeutic and organic process as opposed to under stressful deadlines (hence the functional distinction between Fine versus Commercial arts), but I know left to my own devices waiting for inspiration is bullshit - it does happen, just 99% of the time under pressure. Like I tell my students, it's called artWORK. Yeah I know, first-world problems, and I know the majority of struggling artists wish they had such issues. But you can only give so much, and if you put everything into it, it takes a lot out of you too. So some self-care and prudent marshaling of inner output will go a long way to recovering from this series of switchbacks & speed-bumps.

When all that's left are the empty backs of stickers