Grammaticaster

Today I came to the realization, some time between 2:30 pm and 5:45 pm, that one of the major problems that needs to be addressed re: my literary and pictorial creations is that neither my writing nor my photography resemble the literature or the photographs I admire.  Not even remotely. 

I blame DeviantART (to which I have recently retreated after a Flickr flirtation that went nowhere, and where I am currently having to re-migrate my older photos so as to have some recent-ish work to show to the critical masses – that I find more photography that I admire on DA may be more a result of site-navigation preference on my part than a failing of what I am sure is a hefty and vibrant Flickr artist community… nevertheless…) for the epiphany’s onset.  Upon browsing, my eye and attention is continually drawn to photographs that depict washed out, dreary, hazily-haloed landscapes and unnaturally faded/flawed portraits seemingly beautiful merely by accident but surely concocted purposefully and, well, artfully.  Meanwhile, where I can look back at the photos in my online portfolio – a year or so of work, thereabouts – and enjoy them for what they are, they really do not represent what I would ultimately envision my art to be.  My photographs remain the experiments of a novice still figuring out what all the pretty buttons on the camera are for.  And I am ready for that phase to be over. 

Whether that metamorphosis should take the form of learning new, more advanced digital manipulation techniques or of devolving and experimenting with film and development, I really cannot say.  One way or another, though, I think we are just about done with the era of the Technicolor flower close-ups. 

The same holds for my writing – not that I have been doing a heck of a lot of that lately (intentions, intentions, intentions, etc.).  Surveying the past, say, five years of scribbled nonsense, however, what I perceive most clearly is not only a lack of focus and a lack of consistency (both prevalent flaws, mind you), but also an unforgivable lack of growth.  Again, my writings do not come close to reflecting what I find most admirable and exciting in the world of literature. 

My favorite writers are those who are either masters and lovers of language – Nabokov, Eliot, and more recently for me, DFW – or soul-crushingly sharp observers of humanity – Pessoa, Dostoyevsky and so forth.  The point is: I cherish inventiveness, insight and intricate detail.  Where is that in my writing?  Hell, I signed up for a contest whose very premise was speed over substance.  How does that further the skills I care most about? 

So, while I must stick to my original goal – to produce and to keep the creative wheels oiled and spinning – I must also remain mindful of whether or not I am making any progress.  Whether I am growing artistically.  Not that I imagine I could ever construct a poem or a story or compose a photograph that would scrape the ground that those great artists stand on (I do not even really need to publish or sell any of my work… that is the least of my intentions), but I hope that I might be able to look back on these things and see that I worked on moving toward a higher ideal.

Meanwhile, it is tax season.