Foolin' em

The other night, I had a drink with another video artist. Completely un-self-consciously, she reported on her new projects, on the pitfalls of posting a recent work on YouTube, and on her successes. She took the greatest pleasure in describing the adventures of her artistic evolution, which generally springs off 80’s heavy metal cover bands.

It was fun to hear about, although I felt like a pop culture loser.

Then, she asked what I was up to, and I said, “oh, I’m doing a lot of work incorporating text.”

Well, that was a conversation stopper.
And so, we shifted to her love life.

The point is, many of us artists have a very hard time describing our work, but, we’ve got to bite the bullet. I’m starting to learn that it’s best to describe a specific project, rather than try to describe form (“incorporating text”) or overarching subject (“impermanence”).

I could have said: I’m working on a three-channel project that overlaps three subjects, artist life, family life and political life. I’m using documentary dialogue and text, no photographic images.

I probably would still have gotten the same blank reaction, but at least I would have done myself some justice. Enough fuel at least to just get myself back into the studio.