Wrapping up for now...

Here are some miscellaneous thoughts about my IFJM 2014 project. There are additional wrap-up posts which can be displayed by clicking on the "2014 FJ Wrap-up" link just below this post.

An advantage of doing something every day rather than doing more at one time but only some days is that I feel different on different days so there is more variety.

My character several times came up with creative solutions when I was having trouble with an entry. This means that I am capable of coming up with creative solutions.

When I look back at journals I've done, they typically make me glad that I've done them whether or not I particularly enjoyed doing them at the time. This is in contrast to looking at individual pieces of art later because I usually don't like them any better than when I did them.

Even simple sketches or bits of ephemera can really add a lot to a page.

I still haven't completely figured out why I have creative blocks doing art-related activities that I don't seem to have in other creative activities but my 2014 IFJM project has given me some new avenues to explore.

Guilt?

In the past few years I've tried a variety of visual art activities but haven't enjoyed doing them as much as I'd expected to and as much as I'd like to.

In thinking back about what felt different when I was creating my 2014 fake journal as opposed to when I've done other types of art-related creating, I realized that I hadn't experienced a certain special type of guilt that I typically feel. At first I thought maybe it was simply because I was aware that my making the fake journal could possibly be useful to certain other people. But I quickly remembered that I don't typically feel guilty simply because an activity isn't useful.

But then I had an insight. I suspect that this guilt only occurs when I know I could be doing something more useful than whatever I am doing. In other words, when I'm trying to create art, I'm apparently aware at some level that I'm wasting limited resources—my creativity, my intelligence, my ability to focus, my ability to learn new things, etc.—that I've used in the past to do something I have judged to be useful. This concern isn't relevant when I'm doing something like watching TV because then I'm not wasting these limited resources. That is, I do accept that I can only do so much that's useful at any one time.

Here is a link to a summary of a related discussion titled Creativity: Do You Feel Guilty for Being an Artist? Many of the commenters said things along the lines of art is hard or art is important. Here is one artist's comment that resonated with me:

Bridges, buildings, roads, the fabric of our world needs artists. Some work with paint, or stone or steel, others work with math, sound and genes. No, I don't feel guilty about being as artist, as such. I feel guilty that I have created so little when the world needs so much.

I'll be very interested to read your comments on this question.

Staying Seated

I finished my fake journal yesterday and am happy to say I did one entry every day in April and the journal came out much better than I'd hoped. (This post explains the journal.) There are probably several complex reasons why this worked as well as it did that I will need to think more about to understand. However there was this very obvious one: a strict limitation on materials. Since working on my fake journal only required two items, i.e. the physical journal itself and a writing implement, there was never any need to go look for either something essential I'd forgotten before I could start or something extra I'd just suddenly decided later that I couldn't get along without. (I did several times print or cut out something to glue onto a journal page but I did this in such a way that it didn't affect the time spent writing.)

Typically when I try to do any art activity including art journaling, I spend more time hopping up and down and looking for stuff than I spend actually working. (I should note I'm not usually this way when doing other creative activities.) I've tried limiting materials but this hasn't worked very well for me in the past. There are of course numerous other approaches that have the potential to improve this situation. I hope to use the momentum from my IFJM project to discover which of these approaches work best for me.

The Significance of Fake Reality

Although I've been reading about International Fake Journal Month (IFJM) for several years, this is the first year I'm participating. I haven't yet decided how much I want to write about my fake journal but the experience of the six journal entries so far reminded me of a very enjoyable but unusual IFJM-related experience I had last year when Roz, the instigator of IFJM, asked her readers to send in collage material that her character might choose to use in her fake journal. .

I sent in a few old canceled postage stamps and I believe it was the real Roz who opened my letter, checked the items, and kindly mailed me the 2013 IFJM button with her portrait of a French Bulldog and last year's motto: "Embrace the Fake."

In any case, her character did use my material. I know this because Roz made a video where she paged through the journal (which is awesome) and I saw my stamps on one of the pages!

Seeing the stamps I'd sent appearing in the video was a fun but also surreal experience. How did my real stamps end up in a virtual representation of an apparently actual fake journal produced by a character Roz created? I plan to explore this question further in a wrap up once the 2014 IFJM is over.

NOTE All of my 2014 IFJM posts will be displayed by clicking on the IFJM link after the word Labels: just below this post or any of my other posts with the same link.