Brighter Torch, Deeper Cave

The Less and Less I Know –

Dear random follower, I appear to you as someone who has a handle on finding success in online art. I have an established audience, revenue streams, and systems set up so that my art gets made. It seems I have a plethora of experiences to reflect upon and knowledge to impart.

Despite this, the more I’ve grown in technical and soft skills, the less I feel comfortable talking about “how to do things” or “how things are”. My earlier blog posts were often instructional articles, centered around art. I’d try to pump out expertise regularly, since it was good for growth and I liked writing down my “lessons learned”. It was also cathartic in a way – a way to sort out my opinions and thoughts on a tricky topic. These would come out once every 1-2 months.

Looking at my website’s current front page, I’ve written a mere 4 blog posts in the past year, 3 of them being status updates. I’ve pretty much stopped writing those esoteric pieces on the nature of “ze artistic process”.

And it’s not due to lack of interest, or lack of necessity.

It’s because of something else – lack of knowledge.

Expanded Vision

My “Feature Animations” playlist contains 10 videos, 9 of which I consider to be finished short films. I’m confident enough to say: That’s a sizable portfolio of animation.

When an artist finishes a truly creative project, they tend to wise up. Dumb mistakes cannot be repeated for the next project – they know better by now. They then master intermediate mistakes, and even some high-level mistakes. At some point, the goal is no longer avoiding mistakes, but “trying new things out”. Experimentation will always lead to mishaps but now it’s voluntary. Eventually, you’ll get good at innovation itself. You’ll become more easily inspired, and operate resourcefully within shorter and shorter time frames.

Thus, the artist’s once myopic view of the nearby risks and hazards has been replaced by a broad gaze of the horizon.

Paradoxically, as my vision expands, the more unexplored land I see. There are so many paths to take and options to consider. It would be irresponsible to tout my incomplete view as “the way to go”. I could describe the route I took, but who’s to say that it the proper path for someone else?

Maybe I didn’t need to compete, or grind so many hours. Maybe art doesn’t need to be so serious. Maybe one should do art for “fun”, despite how generic a term “fun” is.

I’ve gone far, but I can sense millions of miles of road. Not just ahead of me, but sprawling in all directions. I see others taking completely different routes, yet still making it to their own milestones, just like me. Making it work.

So despite my desire to lay down some wisdom and plant sturdy road-signs for passing artists, right now I feel like it would be best to just continue my pursuit, and keep walking.

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