In the last two weeks I’ve spent my evenings watching bad reality tv while furiously drawing the strange images that come to my head, using art to translate how I feel inside. The drawings are odd and circular, as if looking through a peephole into my mind. They are disorienting and dark and silly and also not silly at all, which seems very much on brand for me but makes me a little worried that you will look at them and say, “Everything okay in that weird-ass noggin of yours?”
And it is. Mostly.
It feels like a tiny project wanting to come to fruition that I have little control over.
A lot of you have said these recent doodles remind you of Edward Gorey, which is the best compliment ever because I’ve loved Gorey since I was little. Surreal. Ridiculous. Bizarre. And so now I wonder if these images (and so many others I’m working on) might be a sort of Gorey-esque story my troubled mind is creating for me and I’m half excited about it and also half uncomfortable about the idea that I’m doing something Gorey-esque without the actual talent of Gorey. I think it’s something lots of creators struggle with.
Then I remind myself that (as Austin Kleon says in Steal Like an Artist) we build on those who inspire us. And as Oscar Wilde said, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” Usually people leave off the last part of that quote because it sounds insulting but honestly, learning techniques from the greats and then using that knowledge to create something new and unique (even it doesn’t touch the talents of those who inspired you) is a wonderful way to explore what you can bring to the world.
Of course, I just looked up that Oscar Wilde quote to make sure that I got it right and turns out that current scholars aren’t even sure that Oscar Wilde said that at all and it’s possible that quote was written by someone who was imitating their idea of what Oscar Wilde might have said if he was imitating another guy who said something similar (but less insulting) about imitation.
Now I have a headache.
But my point still stands. My doodles may never rise to the level of Gorey but Gorey might have worried his doodles never rose to the level of John Tenniel, or Aubrey Beardsley, or his own great-grandmother (Helen St. John Garvey) who was a greeting card illustrator in the 1800s from whom Gorey said he inherited his abilities. But I’m still so glad he created them.
SoI think I’ll keep creating too. And who knows where that will lead?
PS. I always turn the contrast up on my drawings because they look cleaner here with a pure white edge but it also accidentally deletes some of the more delicate lines and so I end up looking at the original and the high-contrast, unable to tell which I should share, and then I showed them to Hailey and they were like, “These are the same picture” and then I realized that maybe I’m overthinking it. But just in case…the image at the top is the processed version and the image below is the original picture of the drawing I took on my phone, which turned out a bit dark so I went outside to photograph it in the sunshine but then it flew away on the breeze and I had to go chase it into the neighbors yard and then I gave up. Do you prefer one or the other?
Your friend,
Jenny
I think I like the original every so slightly more, but they're both intriguing. I was in Salinas recently and learned of a Steinbeck quote which I have taken as my mantra and, I think, also applies here.
“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
I bought a sticker of it for inspiration. Now I just have to find the perfect place to put it.
It's so hard to photograph art - propped up against the cat works well for me. People are "Oh, kitty - so cute" and that makes up for a lot. On closer look I think the chair is actually upright on the floor and the cat is hanging from the ceiling... at least that's how it works in my house. We are never "lesser" versions of other artists - we are always perfectly ourselves and as our skills grow our art evolves and that's exactly as it should be. <3