A few months ago, I packed up my life in Switzerland and moved with my family to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Somewhere in all that moving, my art practice went... well, it went to sleep. Now I have an empty room, a brain full of ideas, and a chance to start again.
The first thing I made in my new studio was a self-portrait. [Watch the short on YouTube →]
Calling it a studio is generous at this point. It’s an empty room in our house in Tashkent with white walls, a wood floor, and almost none of the things that would make it particularly useful for making art.
So when the mood to create struck me and I had not a lot to work with except for my own body and my iPhone, I started taking selfies. Naturally.
Despite how it might seem, I am not particularly comfortable photographing myself. I never know what to do with my hands. I become acutely aware of my face. The second I know a camera is pointed at me, whatever ability I have to behave like a normal human being seems to disappear.
I took a lot of photographs anyway. In time I stopped trying to get a good picture and started playing with the awkwardness of the whole thing, which was much more interesting. In hindsight it probably comes across as pretentious, but I'm over forty years old now, and I think I'm allowed to be pretentious. And I'm allowed to be cringe, too. It's my God-given right as an Xennial on the internet to be cringe and pretentious and to try and monetize my hobby.
Anyway.
Somewhere in the process of the self-portrait photo sesh, the empty room started feeling different. That's because I had made something in it. Something totally weird, but totally necessary.
I’ve been thinking a lot about David Lynch lately. I’m taking his MasterClass, and early on he talks about the importance of having a “setup”: a place where your tools are ready and you can walk in and get to work. You don’t have to drag everything out, clear a table, find the paint, make room for yourself. The room is waiting for you.
This idea has lodged itself pretty firmly in my head. I don’t have that yet. What I have is an empty room.
Eventually there will be a large wall-mounted easel here. There will be shelves full of paint and paper and all the strange things I’ve picked up because I was convinced they would become art someday. There will be a writing desk and books and canvases stacked against the walls.
I have plans. Lots and lots of them.
But while I am planning the perfect place to make things, I realize I am also in grave danger of falling into the trap of preparing to make things instead of actually making them. The studio does not need to be finished before the work begins. So I started working on the art again.
Soon I will bring back my email newsletter (and renaming it The Porch Lighter -- sign up right here right now if you think you are going to want in on that). Beware, the landing page is outdated, but I've been oddly productive, so who knows? Maybe I will have updated it by the time you read this journal entry.
And with this journal post, I suppose I have accidentally softly launched my new YouTube channel where I’ll be documenting my art life in a different way: the studio, the artwork, the writing, Tashkent, the places I go looking for materials and inspiration, and my increasingly strange experiments with a camera. I think I have like one subscriber? Give me some love over there if you're liberal with the subscribe button.
In closing, I guess all I have left to say is there is a lot I want to make. Right now, though, all I've got is an empty room in Tashkent. And the first thing I did in that room was stand against the walls of it and awkwardly take my own picture. But then...
But then.
I started a study for a new large-scale painting inspired by the life and work of my creative hero David Lynch. Here it is.
A small square of velvet, blue-black as midnight. Seems like as good a place to start as any.
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