Art Journal Series: Burning a Painting

For the longest time I’ve been plagued by this feeling: that every creative project I start, I must approach it with utmost seriousness and it must fit into an outwardly faced expectation of utility and productivity.

And while I remain as quality oriented, perfectionistic, and neurotic idealistic as ever, my life completely shifted when I stopped guilting myself for creating what and how it makes sense to me. Not to say that I stopped caring, or stopped being passionate – quite the contrary!! It’s almost like a new level of creativity has been unlocked within me when I realized that I can allow myself an unlimited number of tries and ways of creative expression – and absolutely NOBODY has to know.

This is exactly what my Art Journal series is: a safe space for me to experiment, F* up, make mistakes, draw crooked lines (more or less metaphorically), and use the whole box of… well… not crayons – but you know what I mean.

I don’t know exactly where along this journey I’ve fallen into this trance that every little thing that I do – from the smallest to the biggest – has to serve someone else, or someone else’s interests; but I’m finally giving myself permission to explore the themes, styles and the art that I always loved and wanted to explore.

Without worry about niches, styles, trends, markets, utility, usability, branding, social impact, keywords, audience, or some random platform’s algorithmic moods & fits.

And it’s making me so happy! Because art shouldn’t always have a reason for existing or being made, other than its intrinsic value. Art shouldn’t always be subservient to a bigger goal or reason – art itself is the goal. Art is just an expression of one individual; and it is pure, unaltered, imagination.

Others might not see things this way, but: every day I get to do something that makes my soul happy it’s a roaring success in my book. Now… that differs from day to day, and that’s totally ok. But I’m currently going through this phase when I’m rediscovering skills, techniques, and endeavors from the past, and I’m bursting with excitement for things I never thought would bring me so much joy to revisit (or try for the first time) – which allow me to unleash my creativity in all sorts of random and new ways.

…Even if that disappoints, or it’s not what’s “expected”.

Like for example creating art effects by the use of flame and fire. Or altering and painting old clothes.

Fire has always been “my” element of choice and been continuously drawn to it, but somehow there was always this barrier within, this inner critic, who stopped me from trying… until now. Also, I found that the best way to experiment some of these weird (in the best way possible!) ideas is to use some old paintings that I either A). never truly finished or B). I’m just not happy with.

This is how, in the next moment, I was finding myself sitting on the pavement setting paintings on fire hahaha 😅😅

Having these pieces in the art journal also saves me the trouble of worrying about having to store them, move them around, or package them a certain way – so it’s all in one place, in a safe format. Also these can serve as an idea board and references for future works, where I can explore certain concepts further.

While experimenting with different elements, I realized something I knew a long time ago: how much I crave creative processes that involve all my senses, touch especially. This is precisely why I prefer physical books to digital ones, or how one singular component in a fabric can make a WHOLE world of difference, or sounds and colors feel “tasty” and “fragrant” to me. In a world which is turning more and more digital, I start to desire more and more the feeling of a touching (also, emotionally moving) experience. Hence why in my process I am drawn to use things like fire, leaves, or random materials.

Looking forward to exploring this idea deeper and seeing what kind of collages and experiments I’ll be drawn towards next.