i feel lately like i am waiting patiently inside some kind of warm tube, not so much trying to figure out what i want to be doing with myself & my art, as i am expecting to. i was worried at first that it was some flaw - a laziness, or some unspoken anxiety - that kept me from being able to submerge myself in the project before me - one i have been loosely sketching for months now. at worst, i was afraid that this was simply a side effect of aging - that growing older was going to doom me to a lifetime of diminishing returns, or convince me to finally hang it up altogether.

i’ve always been curious about how an artist’s passion dies. whether it’s because of circumstance, age, repetition, an exhausting of resources, a refusal to grow & change, too much assimilation. was it even the artist’s fault, or was it simply misplaced nostalgia, an aging audience desiring reassurance of their frozen tastes, forever & ever.

i’ve wondered if it’s maybe somewhere in the middle - the audience grows older, so the artist feels compelled to tread water, dispassionately recreating their early triumphs, lest they no longer draw a crowd, are no longer able to feed themselves, fall from grace, fall from relevance, etc. they become a xerox, photocopying a beautiful photo until everything beautiful and relevant cracks and oozes out and away.

this is not to say that all artists lose their spark, or that it’s always for one reason regardless - it’s just easier to think in broad terms so that i might fit myself into the whole shebang (good word). have my passions died? have i lost my spark? i don’t think so. i was worried for a little bit, but now i think that i am just coming to a point where i want to move past everything i was doing before - i don’t want to repeat myself, but i also don’t want to be so concerned with innovating and experimenting that i am unable to take a good idea or concept and hone it, crafting something far more memorable than it would be had i rushed to get it done.

so i am waiting, then, for it to hit me - what i want to do - and i am sitting in a warm tube, maybe lying down, letting my mind wander and occasionally finding enough motivation to begin the most basic work necessary for what’s inevitably coming. i am clearing away branches and stones and all kinds of debris now so i can build a very beautiful, very expensive house at some point in the future. i just don’t really know what it’s going to look like yet. i definitely want it to have gold toilets, a hot tub, some kind of balcony so that i don’t need to go all the way downstairs to smoke cigarettes. you know? it will be good.