Unpacking, unraveling, and simplifying

Formulating and asking meaty, substantial questions is challenging, and made even more difficult when you have to ask them to yourself. Just thinking to prompt the asking is skill set all its own. The reflex to ask seems like a learned skill also fostering curiosity, aka being hungry for knowledge, aka letting yourself fall down a rabbit hole.

I titled my critical theory paper, "Relational Aesthetics: A Cultural Agency". Man that sounded cool. I had truly no inkling of what I meant by it in retrospect, just a head full of budding ideas. The January residency exposed me to so much more than I expected. 

Pursuing a graduate degree is serious business. My advisor Chris said spelled it out for me today by saying that, "this is a terminal degree. Once you get it, you will be a master of a chosen field. What you say will have weight." Good lord did that strike a cord. I mean, of course a masters program implies that, but how many people have I met that have a masters degree that barely regard it with that amount of gravitas. I totally subscribe to his ideal too, Its just peculiar that I would have thought otherwise in retrospect.

I am very happy to be participating in an active dialogue with my art making. I used to extrude out and hammer into shape a product with very little regard to actively engaging with a piece. I didn't listen to what it needed, whether that meant adjusting the composition, letting myself explore the concept further and think about how it could be better embodied/executed, or even simply letting myself play with the medium and experience it for what it was. There is so much that I have been denying myself in pursuit of an output to give to a client. Its time to respark curiosity and ask better questions, or rather just ask them at all:

What is the difference between painting v.s. digital painting?

Do I have a desire to paint or to render?

What are the implications of a desire to render? And why is that different from painting? (*painting is a can be used for rendering and is only one type)

What are the psychological implications of desiring to render ones world? There is a tradition of rendering going back to the Lascaux Caves. How do you fit into this tradition?

Scale as a variable in art making to be manipulated and why?

Physical object/artifacts and their value as a one of a kind item, and how that relates to painting.

What is art as social practice?

Why is sincerity beautiful?

How is roleplaying different from acting?

What does it really mean to break the 4th wall? (*stop referencing it until you truly understand it)

How is what Mudman does different from roleplaying? How is it similar?

Do you need to sign your work? Should you?

Why would it be good not to finish a piece?

How does my personal relationship to the illustrations of rpgs differ from their intended use of merchandising? This relates to something.... (ask chris).

What does it mean to be preoccupied with validation from others?

Paper Questions:

How does Kant and Duchamp's ideas about beauty relate to my own?

Duchamp challenged people to question if art needed to be beautiful. In your opinion, does it need to be?