As this is my first post here I guess a brief introduction is in order. I always describe my day job as “Standard Nerd”, but then again that’s not what I’m here for. Over the last twenty/thirty years or so I’ve made a number of forays into “the arts” from painting to music, to photography, to theatre, to writing (so much writing), and in the last few years: Puppetry.
My two big puppetry projects are a Puppet A Week for this year, which is feeding puppets to the puppetry troupe I’m the builder/a puppeteer for: Death By Puppets. For PaW I’m trying to stretch my skills in puppet design, construction, etc. With DxP we’re certainly stretching my ability with performance.
While I do spend a lot of time involved in activities that fall under the heading of “the arts”, I don’t consider myself an artist. I’ve long had problems considering the outcome of whatever putatively artistic endeavor I’m involved in as Art (with a capital A). My goal is primarily to improve my craftsmanship, and perhaps if I’m a good enough craftsman something somebody might consider artistic will come out of it. Mostly I’m hoping to have fun, and stretch.
What to expect from my postings around here? Puppets mostly, though I’m a geeky dad and I might take a few tangents now and then.
PS: This profanity-laden set of outtakes from a little recap I did of The Guild may represent far too well how my brain works. NSFW (language):
YOU ARE SO TOTALLY AN ARTIST!!!!
Also, welcome to the lab! I look forward to seeing all of your artistic creations. 🙂
Puppets puppets puppets puppets puppets puppets puppets puppets!!!! 🙂
Welcome Charles! By the way, there’s no point in trying to resist the Artist label. I just thought you should know. You’re rolling with us now.
Thanks for the welcome!
There’s probably an interesting (to me anyway) discussion to be had about “being an artist” and my hang-ups with never claiming the moniker. I think the two biggest parts of it are that A) I worry if I think of myself as an artist then it will be a goal attained and I will then falter in my drive to keep going and get better and B) that I almost never feel that whatever I’ve created has come close enough to what it looked/sounded like in my head to have it count as art.
I think that second one is the bigger of the two and that is tied to some nebulous internal definition of art as a creation which has an intent behind it and a realization of that intent. Or, even better, a (for lack of a better term) vision of what the artist wants to create which is then created.
Now, on some level I recognize that most people who are artists (self or other described) are probably doing the same sort of thing that I am, stumbling towards an outcome and eventually getting distracted by another piece to work on, or giving up with the results being “as good as I can get it for now”.
I hit this with writing as well, which is my other “art form” of choice. I’ve spilled over half a million words on the page/screen over the last decade and have only a couple short stories and blog post/essay things to show for it. Subsequently I don’t claim to be a writer, because a writer writes, and what I do is apparently just screw around with words… a LOT.