I am a selfish artist. I have no problem admitting that, as well as the ways in which I am selfish.

1. I create for myself. I am interested in satisfying my curiosity.
2. I create by myself. I like to work alone.
3. I create because I love to test my potential.
4. I create I hope people will like what I contribute to the world.

Up until a certain point, those were my reasons for creating. I started noticing a pattern in how I was working. I was rushing to get an image finished, excited to see the finished product, ignoring the idiosyncratic pieces of the process. I was addicted to sharing.

When that realization hit me, I had to take a step back from what I was doing. I realized just how un-lasting that finished product truly is. It may stand the test of time, or it may be gone with a hard drive crash. It may be remembered in museums or forgotten in a matter of days. Once you finish your art, it is released. It is not yours to control, it is for the public (if, of course, you are sharing your art at all). What remains, despite anything, is the process.

That was when I began thinking about CREATION in a different way from CREATING.
One puts emphasis on the product, the other on the action. 

In no way do I think it is bad to enjoy the product of your efforts. You should.

ART SHOULD BE SELFISH.

But, what about cherishing the in-between? What about the moments, minutes, hours, days, months, years it takes to create your art? As time moves on, even the mundane experiences build up to influence what you create and how you create it.

How often do you find yourself rushing through the creating process to get to the creation? I’ve done it hundreds of times. Hundreds. I’ve rushed through thinking deeply, rushed through creating with care, overlooked editing mistakes, and all so I could congratulate myself for making something. Tangible. Physical. Finished.

What an error in my judgment these years past. What an error in my life.

Over the past nine months I’ve been planning a new photo series. For most of that time I didn’t have a single vision that stuck, not a single sketch made that would lead to something finished. It scared me. I felt like a fraud. I felt like a lair of an artist. I felt like an imposter.

I mean, look at the facts. I am an artist who has created quickly, churning out a lot of work in short periods of time. I became addicted to the pace, to the praise, to the CREATION. It was time to learn how to love CREATING.

So I had a talk with myself. It went something like this:

Brooke (Subconscious): Slow down. Let’s take a while to think through what you need to say as an artist.
Brooke (Conscious): Nope. Let’s make something every single day to prove my worth as an artist.
Brooke (Subconscious): Wouldn’t you rather find your worth by creating meaningful art?
Brooke (Conscious): Nope.

It was somewhere around month 5 of thinking about my new series and coming up empty that I had a breakdown. I felt like such a failure as an artist. I felt I had let myself down.

What I had really done was let myself go.

I let go of the artist I was.
I let go of the expectation I put on myself.
I let go of the expectation I felt from others.

And I opened my mind to the idea that thinking is an art form in itself. That being with my thoughts and letting them play their course is just as valuable, and often more so, than churning out work.

That was when my mindset changed. I no longer wanted a CREATION, I wanted to CREATE. I have never felt more clear in my intent, more centered in my message, more secure in myself as an artist.

Do you create for the product or for the experience?
(This is a really difficult one to admit.)

How do you see yourself as an artist?

One week in and I can’t think of a better way to be spending my summer. The mornings are cool and dark and peaceful, my editing sessions are filled with tea and music, and my afternoons are for working. Evenings bring walks and yoga and cooking up new recipes. Nights bring Star Trek and reading.

When I began creating images years ago, I was just out of college (technically still in the very end semester), and I had nothing to my name. I had no money. I was moving and unsettled and had no place to call home. I took a job as a receptionist and saved everything that I possibly could, eating lots of Ramen soup and paying off my student loans extremely diligently. One year in to being out of school, I had paid off my student loans and I was moving toward this dream career.

I remember waking at 5am each morning to shoot before work and editing when no one was looking throughout the day. I remember how exhilarating it was to have the freedom to create; to come up with a new idea everyday made me feel powerful. I also burned out on it, as we all do at times, and I’ve found balance since then. With this July challenge brings memories of that time in my life, when I had never taken pictures before so everything was new. Everything had never been done before, in my world.

During those times, because money was so tight, I had a strict rule for myself: buy nothing. I used hand-me-down equipment, a tripod from a thrift store, and anything I could find around me. I remember once dragging a shopping cart up the stairs to my second floor apartment, getting stuck and pinned on the way there. I remember gathering branches. I remember finding old fabric in an alley. I remember my utter amazement, and subsequent empowerment, I felt at realizing the great many uses of a bed sheet.

We don’t need fancy things to create. Our imaginations are free. We are free to use them. And they can set us free.

Today I celebrate how wonderful it is to be a CREATOR in this beautiful world. To see the things that others don’t; to see potential where others see roadblocks. Is that not what makes an Artist? Seeing something different in the world and expressing that view in your own unique iteration?

Today I photographed the most ordinary items: a rope, an old oar I’ve had for ages, a candle holder…and I created from that. Can I afford more now than I could then? Yes. Do I feel that I need to spend money to prove myself? To make myself feel more ‘professional’? No. So here I create in my happy world of my own building, where rarely does anything cost more than $10 and I can exist blissfully inside my imagination.

There’s lots of room in here, if you want to join.

When I create I’m often running back and forth between my spot where I’m posing and the camera, checking things like focus and angle and composition. I usually find myself flipping my hair about, or tensing my muscles – bringing the character to life. Sometimes my shooting process is so quick that I invent other things to do while I’m out – a different take on a shoot. Sometimes I collect sticks or leaves to take home with me, though they never make it far into the house.

Editing is always such a journey, and I get lost in it. Hours pass and I have no idea. I forget to look up from my screen until my cat meows for food and I realize darkness has fallen, and the only light comes from my bright screen. I imagine how if I could see myself from afar, my face would be lit blue from the blue fabric I’m editing together. Everything in life is so cinematic, and I draw inspiration from that to go wild with blue in this edit – take it to the extreme.

I love playing with extremes when I edit, often adding a lot of saturation and pulling back later to finesse it. Sometimes I wonder how I find the discipline to do anything but shoot and edit all day long, but when I finish my mind returns to normalcy and I feel fulfilled – transported – alive.

How do you create? I would love for you to share your process with me, either in general or in relation to a specific creation. If you write a comment here, share a blog post on the subject, or record a video response I will be sure to choose one to feature – just make sure you share a link with me in these comments.

It was stunning, and I had an idea for it a while before I ever got there. However, I didn’t know I was going that day, and I ended up having to use whatever I happened to have with me. Unsure of what the angle restrictions would be, I decided to scope things out and then start shooting when the sun went down. On the beach, that always leaves very little time to shoot given that the horizon line is not obstructed by anything; so essentially, once the sun goes down, you only have minutes to get the shot.

There were also many other photographers there shooting everything from fashion to engagement shoots, so the advantage to shooting later was that the moment I pulled my camera out, everyone else was packing theirs in. I had the whole place to myself for a blissful 20 minutes.

After creating the image of the tower, I decided to shoot a sequel…a fairytale gone wrong, in which she ends up on the ground after jumping from the tower. In the first image I had imagined a fairytale character trapped in the tower, so she fashions herself a dress from her bed sheet and uses a rope to jump/fly/float down to the bottom.

It was incredibly inspiring to use props that I happened to have on hand. Rope and a bed sheet were all that I had in the car, so I used what I had to create. The bed sheet truly made the perfect dress for my vision and I was so thrilled that I didn’t feel held back in any way by not having expensive props. I hope you enjoy the resulting images!

Do you ever shoot with whatever you have laying around? Do you ever challenge yourself to shoot minimally and see what your imagination does? I challenge you!