With age, art and life become one
Georges Braque
It is well documented that, at some point, every artist will go through a creative struggle. The poet can’t find the right words, the writer runs out of plot ideas, the painter can’t find the inspiration, or the vocalist loses her passion. During these creative slumps, the artist tends to question their entire creative existence despite years of accomplishments. But what does an artist do when their passion is still strong, and the ideas are readily flowing, but there is still a large hole that they can’t seem to fill?
Recently, I have struggled with my artistic process. My desire and motivation to create have remained intact, and ideas still come regularly to my mind. However, for the last two years, something has been missing. Despite trying other mediums, taking a break, or just pushing through, I have found little fulfillment in the art I created in that time. So, I took some time to really reflect and get to the bottom of the issue.
Fast forward 6 months later, and only two shoots completed in that time, I was still completely baffled. How could I have all the tools, motivation, desire, and ideas to create, yet I rarely picked up the camera during that time? And the few times that I did push myself to create, I could not find the satisfaction that I was looking for. I considered that maybe it was a volume issue. In years past, I would easily have 40-50 shoots a year. Maybe I wasn’t shooting enough. Even though every shoot won’t be a home run, having more shoots would at least increase my chances of gaining fulfillment, right?
WRONG
I soon realized that the common denominator in my photography was not the number of shoots I had in a year but the people and their stories behind each photo. The art of portrait photography is relational and requires a bond between like-minded people trying to bring to life the same vision. This bond was the common denominator behind the thousands of photos I have taken in years past.
Portrait photography is the epitome of relational art. Two people come together to bring an idea or vision to life. For other types of artists, their ideas are birthed in private and only get shown to the world once they have been refined and polished. But with relational art, the artist must be vulnerable with another person and trust them to treat their vision with kindness and empathy. That person will see the artist’s work in its rawest form. That is a level of vulnerability that creates a bond between an artist and a muse.
When I first started on this photography journey, my work thrived off being able to empathize and connect with people. The art thrived on truly being able to relate to people and get them to trust in the vision or idea I had. Through those connections, I met some really great people along the way. And while some of those relationships transcended beyond the art into friendship, there was one thing that could not be transcended…
TIME!!!
You can’t stop time. And with time comes changes. People grow, and interests change. And life, well, life be life’ing. As we all get older, art often takes a back seat to other responsibilities. My photography journey started in my late 20s, and many of the people that I met along the way were in their 20s and early 30s as well. Almost 10 years later, we have all grown up in some sort of way. Now it’s hard for me to find people in their 30’s and 40’s that carry that same vigor, passion, and free time they once had. And it’s even harder to relate with a younger crowd. That leaves me in a dilemma.
Gone are the days of dozens and dozens of shoots in a year, and gone are the days of a variety of personalities and stories. Gone are the days when a new idea would be accompanied by a new face. Now, I must cultivate the artistic relationships that have aged with me while picking up the occasional new one along the way. That means creating with a smaller pool of people and accepting the fact that multiple creative ideas will have the same faces.
I think this is what they call acceptance, and acceptance eventually comes with age. So maybe it’s not a hole I’m trying to fill. Maybe it’s me accepting the fact that both my art and I are getting older.
