Courtesy of The Daily Bunny

To kickstart 2012 on an artistic and personal level, I want to share this comment that touches on creative endeavors and vulnerability:

“If you don’t feel personally exposed when publishing the game, you did not make art.”

– Daniel Benmergui, an independent video game creator

Daniel Benmergui was responding specifically to the question of video games as art, but I think what he said applies just as much to all forms of art.

That exposure, putting myself and my thoughts out there for people to see, is always a bit terrifying for me. I’m constantly jealous of the people that can just display online or in person what I feel like are the squishy, inner guts of our emotional lives that should stay well within my body:

Learn how to strip wires, install power supplies and ground sockets in a day.
“Sure!”

Talk about my feelings and how I find something hurtful or stressful.
“…. Must we really talk about such things?”

And yet, the artists and creators that share their inner thoughts publicly are the ones that have helped me the most in navigating my own life.

If I really pause and think about it, we expose ourselves whether we mean to or not. Just as it’s impossible for writers to *not* have a voice, that’s pretty much the same for any creative endeavor. If I’m a private person and I don’t feel comfortable revealing what I consider to be “my business” publicly or with friends, I have already revealed what I consider to be private or not. At the end of the day, it’s a scary experience for anyone to put themselves out there.

Even though for some people, it feels like they can splash their experiences and emotions everywhere as they process and work through their problems in what seems like a public forum like the Internet, what it really means is that at that moment they have a different definition of what feels safe or not to them. Even the vocal ones have their own experiences and feelings that would make them feel overly naked or exposed to share with others.

Whether I mean to or not, my art is colored by my life experiences. It can’t help being a reflection of my feelings at that time. When I go through more stressful, urgent periods in my life, my art and my writing change to more “dark & twisty” topics and moods. Sometimes, it gets overwhelming enough that I choose survival and silence over trying to express anything at all, via artwork or with friends. When I feel more optimistic and hopeful, I start sharing lots of photos of foods and bunnies.

2011 introduced a lot of challenges and growth in areas that I didn’t expect and couldn’t foresee, some were just super overwhelming where it truly felt like I just couldn’t continue. I pretty much stopped creating anything but the bare minimum and severely limited communicating my inner thoughts to most everyone. I just didn’t want to externalize the problems that were already overrunning everything else. 2011 also had insanely wonderful events like *our wedding* where our friends and family truly affirmed in every way through their support, late night help and on the day shenanigans how ridiculously lucky, blessed and loved we are.

Knock on wood, 2012 will have growth but maybe not as many growing pains as 2011. :) And I am already thinking of different projects that I’m eager to start on. Now it’s just a matter of really unpacking and getting my studio in order so that I don’t have to struggle to find things like paper and erasers.

I look forward to 2012, and I wish for everyone the very best 2012 they can make for themselves, too.

An old tribute to Edward Gorey:

“As an artist I’m a vile, parasitic sponge. I soak up anything I lay my eyes on and then try feebly to squeeze it back out of myself.”

(an awesome quote from a very thoughtful discussion about how influence and inspiration can play in an artist’s development — UNFINISHED COMICS: pseudo intellectual ruminations on cartooning – THIRD POST – cartooning after Chris Ware)

I couldn’t agree more (though I’m more a Mz Jobberts who wishes she was a Mz Tibbets instead).

Every once in a while, after I show someone my work, they’ll make an offhand comment that has me spiraling into a vortex of insecurity:

“Oh, it reminds me of… James Jean.”
“It feels so much like Where the Wild Things Are!”
“Oh! I can’t remember the name right now… but you know! Those old children’s books!”
“You can really feel the Asian influence.”

OH NO I HAVE NO UNIQUE VOICE AT ALL I SUCK.

The crazy thing is, they usually meant it as a compliment, to connect. The negativity all comes from my own insecurities of being “an unoriginal copycat hack” because of my perception that our society highly values “uniqueness” (which I fear I don’t have).

Some days, I can be more level-headed (sane) and realize that they just paid me a huge compliment… likening my nascent artwork to such greats as those. I need to cultivate that sanity.

After all, any artist that says he/she has no influences is just a liar. And every artist has had that moment — that niggling paranoia that whispers because you love art, and because you’ve seen so much art, what you have to create is nothing new, has no value or is somehow less meaningful, and/or a direct rip off someone else.

For me, my paranoia surfaces because I art crush so hard. Every once in a while, I’ll encounter an artist that makes me flutter inside. It becomes an obsession, really — I dive through the Great Depths of the Internet, download any or all images available, read all his/her bios and interviews, check out any available books at the library, Link+ books from connected libraries, tag and scan any images I like.

After that kind of immersion, that intense (one-sided) relationship, that artist’s eye is all I see for a while. It’s like how your friends, family, lovers and mentors influence who you are. And as with many other intense interactions, I may sound like that person a little more, use the same words, etc for a little while after being around them, but I’m still me.

As I grow into being an artist (and away from feeling like an unworthy art student – it’s the teens all over again), I hope to be more comfortable with acknowledging that people, life, the world have influenced me, some in more visible ways, and others in ways that I may be unaware of. I also hope that I will continue to process all these inputs and create something new to share with others.

There is something beautiful about how someone’s work and life can touch a stranger and strongly move them, sometimes even changing who they are. I hope one day, I can be an inspiring artist like that for someone else.

I debated whether I should blog about this or not, but if I want an accurate account of where my artistic interests and energy are going, I’d be remiss to leave out…. wedding planning.

My fiance and I have been dating for 11.5 years(!) now. Needless to say, it’s been a long time coming. :)

We actually got engaged earlier this February which gave me about 18 months to plan. I did start looking at wedding things sporadically, but various life events, a website, an Etsy store, and a 2.5-week vacation to Japan and Korea later and suddenly I have less than a year to prepare!

I had no idea how many different details there are to a wedding — it makes me appreciate even more all the beautiful weddings I’ve had the pleasure and honor to attend.

As an artist, it feels only right that I design my own invitations. :) I will share those and other ideas along the way.

Of course, I will continue to work on other art-y things, as well. :D

You must check out this gorgeous comic called His Face All Red by Emily Carroll. The art is beautiful, the storytelling is evocative and I can hardly wait for more.

It looks fabulous on her website. It feels like she definitely had online viewing in mind with the storytelling and layout, a la Scott McCloud. Her comic should be experienced online for its full impact (though if she ever publishes this in print, I’d snatch that up, too):

This is the first “page”:

She will be participating in The Anthology Project 2, as well.

In the meanwhile, you can see more of her artwork on her blogs:
Emily Carroll’s Blogspot
Emily Carroll’s Livejournal – where she posts more frequently

Part of why I enjoy traveling to other countries is discovering art and artists that I would otherwise never encounter in the US:

Yesterday, while I was wandering around in the VenusFort shopping mall in Odaiba I found beautiful artwork that really brought back childhood feelings of imagination and wonder on lovely stationary items.

All I could find on the stationary items themselves were “Snih” working with Delfonics (a stationary company in Japan) and that she signs the items “Yuki.” After much searching online, this Pict website of Yuki Koinuma’s work was all I could find resembling a portfolio website.

Now I’m on a hunt for more of Yuki Koinoma’s artwork in Japan and madly Google to find anything that’s up on the web. :)