First of all, I have to say the 3-week challenge is my turning point. I finished 6 works in 2 weeks instead of 9 in 3 weeks. I still learnt a lot from the process.
I admit that I held back in my idea. Because after the research paper, the question raise behind the case studies are attracted me to go further in my artwork but I can’t find the direction. I circled in my loop. Just like in the post: Making art is difficult, I said I fear of not producing quality works. These caused me to overthink, questioned myself and even ability.
When I agreed to do the 3-week challenge in the tutorial, my actual feeling was like let’s give it a try and took it as an exercise. As the working pattern will be so different from I used to be. In the past, I spent at least a month to planning and doing my works. And it was easy to question myself. So I supposed to feel stressed in the 3-week challenge as the time is so intense and limited. But I have to finish a work per 2 days. In opposite, I felt released as I didn’t have time to doubt myself anymore. I have to trust every decision I made. In these weeks, I just wanted to make works. I also found my working rhythm. I understood I need to rest after doing a week (after doing the Happy Song) to buffer and get new inspirations for the next week.
Happy Cycle #1
Moreover, I thought I will stick to some medium I most familiar with. But at last, I played with different mediums such as Processing, songs, photograph and animation. Some of them are my first trial. For example, I had never tried to edit many songs with the lyrics, “happy” together or using Processing to draw graphics. I enjoyed it and I found that I like making art and actually don’t want to stop. And I’m also happy that I received positive feedback from these works.
I finally learnt that the experience I gained in making art and the process will bring me to the next step. And I have to trust myself and be more confident. Art thinking is good but if I think too much, I will remain unmoved. I have to take action and experiment things in practical as sometime I will learn and find something new from the process. So I have to keep doing work in order to find my direction and also my style.
Happy Cycle #5
Moreover, during the 3-week challenge, I have a new idea for making a mirror that will blur to visualise the time I felt lost. In the past, I didn’t put my personal feeling in the work or even tried to avoid it. I thought the audience does not care about it. But after the challenge, I think it’s fine to express myself because it is my work. I was too cared how the audience thinks about my works and it made me fear to produce work as well. I learn to give more space for the audience and myself to experience instead of pushing them to understand something. Because that is not art.
I really didn’t know I can learn that much from the challenge. I am glad that I really did it and did some good works. And it also proofs that I have to keep going and make more works
keep going!
Wong Chui Yin, Iris 