Frustrated Artist

Every year for sports day my school holds an exhibition of all the students' art from that year. The fifth year art class are usually rounded up the day before to crop, mount and stick everything up all over the school, which means a lot of mitching for me. And that day was today. After pretending to be thoughtfully considering the placement of some truly abysmal and shite first year comic strips for half an hour, then eventually throwing most of them away and halfheartedly sticking up a few decent ones, I strolled around to look at the rest of work. 

It struck me that almost nothing of my own art was to be seen anywhere. Then, horribly, it struck me that I hadn't really done anything good this whole year. I felt nothing did me justice, anyway. That made me pretty sad. Art is something I love and I enjoy everything that it encompasses, from the little intricate pen doodles you do in class of teachers, to the beautiful feeling you get when you capture the humanity of a face you're sketching, to lashing red paint onto a big white sheet and letting it dribble all the way down. And it's something I think I'm pretty good at. Or could be pretty good at. And it sucks to feel like you're wasting your own potential, especially in something about which you care a lot.

My own lack of material was especially obvious beside the emerging ridiculous talent of some of the other guys in my class. One person in particular had done some absolutely awe-inspiring stuff that showed the skill and freedom of a professional artist - and this guy's in my class, in 5th year! He's so much more focused and his style is far more developed that mine, it's amazing. 

But I'm not trying to put this guy up on a pedestal or anything. In fact, I'm so glad that he did such great art because it's made me want to wake up and do myself as much justice as he's done to himself. His work has made me so jealous, it's sickening, and I'm pretty sure that feeling is shared by a lot of other guys in my class. It's the good side to competitiveness, where it urges you on to do better things for yourself and not just so you rub it in other peoples' faces.

All that said I still have to get up off my ass and do some art.......... Probably not going to start right now, so I'll set a goal for myself I think: by the end of Summer, I'm going to be back in the game.

P.S go read Kate's rant about competitiveness on her blog, it's hilarious and made me think of writing this blog (btw major thanks for Kate).