Mind the gap

There's been a long gap. This much is entirely evident. Simply looking at the previous entry below will confirm that the gap can almost be measured in months, although the gap in my mind is longer. That latter gap measures just how long it has been since I last felt engaged as an artist. More to the point, it measure how long it has been since I last felt like an artist. It has been quite a while. As I write this, I am resisting the urge to look back over the last few months of entries, to measure the gap.

Last year was a very busy year for me artistically. I created two bodies of work (one of which may potentially be ongoing) and co-created another. There were also quite a few shows. Somehow, in the darkening winter months, as 2012 wound to a close, my train seemed to jump its rails and slowly grind to a halt. Looking around now, those rails don't even seem visible, as if a heavy snow has fallen, blanketing the ground and covering the tracks. Perhaps the tracks weren't even there and in the way of a dream, the track was actually one in a forest and I've wandered away from it and the falling snow has erased my footprints. Lost in a forest, all alone.

Is this some form of artistic block? At present, I doubt it. In my mind a block of that kind is associated with a desire to create but not the inspiration, nor the necessary ability to do so. I could be wrong.

Where I am, instead, is lost in that snow-frosted forest, where no desire to create exists. I wrote earlier that I don't feel much like an artist, when the truth is that I don't feel like much like anything. I am currently a void. This is not a feeling I particularly want to share. Avoid a void. Nonetheless this empty, in between place is where I am.

While I know that making and sharing art is what makes me who I am, it is not something that I can simply force into being. I know full well that there are processes I can engage in, stepping stones I can stumble over, that will take me back to that place, yet even those are too much to ask.

Snow. Void. Blank. Empty. Flat. This is part of the circle, the revolving circle of creation, the snake eating its own tail, revolver eternal. I do not like it here.