Thoughts on Progression - *Important*

Thoughts on Progression

Breakthroughs

As I have begun to further develop my work, particularly in my sketchbook, I have felt a real sense of humor coming through. I enjoy making work when it is not to be taken too seriously. I like to apply a looseness and silly-ness to my work. I feel when I do, I end up with stronger outcomes. If I begin a piece of work placing too much importance on it (think FMP painting #3), I end up with far weaker and more contrived outcomes. 

This has got me thinking about about my project proposal on memory. While I find the topic fascinating, I think it is vastly too broad for what I am trying to achieve in my work. As I delve further and further into the subject, I find myself being pulled away from the more serious subsections within the topic (such as repressed memory, memory loss, and trauma) and drawn more towards the slightly more mystical and lighthearted topics of memory (such as dreams, memory modification, and recollection of place).

The same way I want to take pressure off of my work to achieve something "great" from the start, I want to take pressure off of my subject to be something "meaningful" or "deep". I am beginning to realize that there is nothing wrong with approaching art lightheartedly. There is nothing wrong with being fascinated by mysterious things like dreams, or something as simple as the memory of a place. Dreams are funny things in that they can often be humorous, nonsensical, scary, odd, fragmented, and disorienting and this is exactly the way I feel my most successful pieces of work are.