empty promises to my travel sketchbook
Cold Spring, NY - thinking about the way the light hits this little stream A LOT lately
After a week and a half of constantly being around other people and traveling for fun and for work and for family, it is a huge relief to be back at home and reacquainting myself to our chore list. I had to say goodbye to my favorite suitcase - a bright yellow hardshell carryon - that I've had since college because of a busted wheel that was so knocked up that it actually had cracked the shell socket of where it was supposed to be. It honestly was an AWAY knockoff my mom bought me from the big Macy's in Herald Square from a company that doesn't exist anymore, but it still made me sad to say goodbye to it. This suitcase moved me to a new city, after all.
Every time I go on a trip, I always pack a sketchbook in my bag of activities with a careful selection of pencil case accoutrements that somehow has both too much and also not enough of the things I want. Thinking about traveling, I fantasize about being the kind of girl that sits in a cafe in a city where I don't know anyone and drawing for hours. In reality, some combination of actually being too busy, the self consciousness of being perceived, and also a kind of consideration to the people I'm with that perhaps don't want to be stuck in the same place for more than 15 minutes, I never end up fulfilling this idea of being someone who comes back with a full sketchbook of doodles and drawings from the road. And I'm always disappointed.
This time, I did manage to get some time to experiment with these tactically wild crayon/marker/?! from Kokuyo that I bought after trying a tester at our local stationary store. Also, they're called PASTA, and at that moment the consumerism demon inside of me reared its ugly head. Something my partner said to me a few months ago lives rent free in my head:
You're so stingy about spending money until you want something.
Well...yeah. Don't we all???
No actual drawing with these as of yet, because there is kind of a learning curve, but I also enjoy giving myself permission to not have to draw a thing versus enjoying the experience of using something.
Elsewhere, on a different trip - there was a moment of quiet on a shady, breezy balcony where I tried to soothe the guilt I felt with a couple of doodles, but even that felt like too little - a desperate attempt at proving to myself "See, you did draw! It wasn't a waste to bring your sketchbook! You're an artist!!"
The guilt is nonsensical, I know. To put this kind of pressure on myself to feel like I have to bring back something to show for it, in terms of artistic "productivity". It never feels like enough to go and enjoy it for what it is, and use a sketchbook as a way to pass time, rather than a homework assignment I've arbitrarily made up. But it's also not good enough to just leave the sketchbook at home, tainting my trip with "If you wanted to make something so badly, if you wanted to even have the right to say you're an artist, you would've brought it." A horrible lose/lose.
I think often about what gives someone the "right" to say they're an artist. Whether it is something that needs to be tangibly proven, in a world of receipts. If it's something that someone else bestows upon you. I've always found it a little bit embarrassing to self identify as an artist, rather than someone who "does" art, as if there's a difference between the two. It's a cruelty I impose on myself, the words eating at me inside. And what about when someone asks me what I do? For work? For fun? Is being an artist an identity you can pick up and put down, based on what you've done in the last week? month? year? Is it a subscription you need to re-up, producing something every time the quota runs down to ensure you can continue to claim it as a title? In therapy, I'm told it's permanent. That it is part of who you are/I am just because that's the way it is, and not because I've picked up a pencil or went to the studio recently. Do I believe that? On a good day, maybe; when I've just come back from a trip with only 2 more pages filled, no.
Maybe someday I will be able to un-self-consciously say "no, I'd rather stay here and draw," or not worry about whether the strangers that see me will not think "why is she even trying?" but for now, I guess I just have to keep hoping that my next promise is one I can keep.
Post Script: My favorite part of all the trips we've been on lately was stumbling upon this random Buddhist Monastery near Carmel Hamlet, NY. Besides the fact that they have some very pretty building, it's also home to hundreds of cliff swallows (apparently pretty rare!!), which we happened to see right during egg hatching season, and witnessed lots of cute puffy little swallows sticking their heads out of their mud built nests in the rafters.