You Don't Have to Be Crazy to Make Art But It Helps

The last week and so I've been getting more into art. It started with wanting to make a zine for the upcoming Appalachia Cinema Preservation Society movie screening. In the era of generative AI (and I guess as an apology for designing a zine completely on a computer like a poser), I wanted at least something handmade on there - so I drew the cover.

I named him "Smiley McTrustworthy"

A part of my past I don't talk about a lot - less from being disappointed in it and more because I've led a life of weird projects that overshadow this section - is that for a few years I was the designer for my college newspaper. It was a small enough community that we actually gave the local papers a run for their money and won awards. I loved designing. Not just the act of it but specifically designing something that had an end result of something in the physical realm. I've apparently forgotten how much I enjoyed that, but I've been rediscovering it with this project.

Something else I wanted to get into was linocuts. I started looking into it and have been studying linocut artists since then, which due to online algorithms also got me looking into related tasks - like making your own paper.

The results were less than successful, but I still love this ugly paper

And yesterday I made paper! It's still drying in the garage as of this writing, but it was made. It was labor for sure. It was difficult and, as you can see from the supplied image, it is some of the ugliest paper you'll ever see - but I made it.

Something I'm remembering about art is the necessity for repetition. To get better at any craft you do it over and over and over. You learn from your mistakes, you build muscle memory, you start to see connections and develop understanding that allow you to develop your own style.

And a part of my brain fucking hates it.

As well as the many hats I wear, I am a professional computer toucher (I beg you don't hold it against me). My language of preference is Ruby on Rails. It is described as an "opinionated language" because, unlike some languages and frameworks, this one has a specific design path it "intends" developers to go through - some are suggestions, some are more laws. One of the sacrosanct laws of Rails is DRY - Don't Repeat Yourself. In Rails, if you see you're doing the same task more than once in separate parts of the code, condense to one area. It's smart programming as it limits the places where code passes so it makes maintenance a lot easier.

And after almost twenty years of telling myself and other developers not to repeat themselves, I find myself drawn to a hobby that requires repetition. In some ways they're different forms of repetition and in others they're not. I've been building the ACPS site and some things I struggled with remembering how to make because - you do it once and forget it. You don't push yourself to look for new ways to explore the code if you design a task once and move forward.

Tag yourself, I'm the dude in the corner excited to eat a Corn Dog

Meanwhile, in Artland, I've been doing daily sketches to just remember how to draw and explore new techniques. Every morning I get up, get a prompt and just play with ink to get a design. Maybe it'll inspire a linocut, maybe it'll inspire a giggle, and maybe it'll just be forgotten - other than the fact that it was one of many. As much as there's a large portion of me that enjoys this and loves this, there's a part of my brain crying out saying "We did this already. Move on to something novel." That's the side of my brain that resisted making all the dots on the Corn Dog for shading and texture. That's the side of my brain that said we were done after making one sheet of paper.

The title of this article was inspired by the old adage of  "doing something over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity." But that's art. You do the same thing over and over and over and you hone a skill. I do expect that after making 100 sheets of paper that it'll look different than my first. I expect the sketches at the end of the tiny notebook will look different than the ones in the beginning.

I look forward to continue to not listen to the side of my brain raging against me doing something over and over in the pursuit of art. It'll grow tired from being ignored as I stop and admire the color of a wildflower.