Vehicles of Creativity

A pic I took of my collages

So many people don't know the sensation of being trapped and freed at the same time. I do because I write and I write passionately. However, writing can be quite draining and difficult at times. I love writing but sometimes it has the opposite effect. Fortunately, I have been finding other forms of art. I have been finding art itself and the freedom of photography. It's absolutely incredible. I feel like I'm speeding from the sky then somehow.

Art is an incredible outlet. As much as I love the written word, there's something so incredibly beautiful about an image. I wish that I could actually draw but I can't (I draw anyway from time to time but I do it rather poorly). Instead, I make do with taking pictures and cutting collages and while that's harder to make into art, it is possible. It definitely is a form of expression.

On Saturday and Sunday, I spent the whole day cutting and pasting from collages while I was in the midst of temporary writer's block. It was enough to get me going for the day. Something seemed so rhythmic about it and yet so free at the same time. While books are so abstract and hard to plan out, art is concrete and much freer. It's enough to get me sucked in for good.

An image is immediate. Everything just strikes the viewer at once and, if the image is well taken, immediately felt and understood. Unlike with books, this crosses language barriers. No matter what language one might speak (if they speak any at all), they understand what is being said. That's quite beautiful.

There's a power to art. A simple beauty. There is nothing that needs to be analyzed because it's all right there on the table for you.

As I become an artist instead of a writer, I find myself worrying about strange things. Instead of worrying about style, plot and characters, I think about sharpness, contrast and exposure.

I feel as if I have more freedom and more control. Instead of spending all of my time writing to occupy my day most of the time, I can make a collage or I can take a stroll around the neighborhood to take pictures.
There's an odd correlation between my art and my writing. Being a writer not only makes me a better artist (even though, since I'm starting out as a novice at both, I still have a long way to go) and being an artist is making me a better writer. I suppose it's all about that frame of mind. The same part of my mind that I use to find images to capture and collage pieces to combine is the same part of my mind that I use to create stories; the process comes from the same part of my mind and it strengthens that part of my mind and adds more life to it.

Art has given me a chance to express how I see the world in a way I can't quite do with writing all the time. It makes me feel freer and I will be forever grateful for that.

As I write, my desk is littered with magazine scraps and I have another file with all of my photographs open. Somehow, that sight is starting to make me feel more at home right now.