Thursday, August 15, 2024 [6:41 PM]

In the last three week I stumbled into an idea that I haven’t stopped thinking about/working on. I don’t exactly know where ideas come from. Elizabeth Gilbert would say “Ideas are a disembodied, energetic life-form. They are completely separate from us, but capable of interacting with us – albeit strangely. Ideas have no material body, but they do have consciousness, and they most certainly have will. Ideas are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest. And the only way an idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner. It is only through a human’s efforts that an idea can be escorted out of the ether and into the realm of the actual.”

Maybe this is true. It often feels true. In a matter of milliseconds an idea can fill the crevices of my brain and overrun its functions. I think it takes awareness, and I think it takes the practice of attention. Together, these forces can turn into a superpower.

For the entirety of the year, I have collected my scraps. Working in printmaking, photography, drawing, digitally… I create a lot of waste extra. Test prints, failed prints. It amounts to a lot. And it feels unsustainable to always toss things. So I keep them tucked away in a folder.

Then, the idea came. And I started scanning all my scraps so I could have them as digital files. With the end goal to compile them into a book/magazine/concept.

I have a lot of details to work out — how will it look, how will it feel, and all the micro-decisions that come with answering those questions — but I want it to be a source of inspiration. A collage of materials in and of itself. A book that you could pull source material from. To use in your mood boards. Your art. Your life.

Like all things ironic, I didn’t dare to create another book after I finished A Geology of Color. But here I am, learning to move with my process, and embrace openness.

Scanning a page from my scraps.