Daring Hue

Today I found my way to this video of a flash mob from a public library in Valladolid, Spain (via On Being Tumblr). Near the end I found tears in my eyes. If I’m being honest, a lot of flash mob videos make me cry. There is something so beautiful about a group of people making something that only exists for a moment, with the main intent of bringing more joy to the world. I watched the video twice, and both times I was fascinated by the reactions of the people in the library. On their faces you can see delight, amusement, excitement, curiosity, skepticism, annoyance and boredom. I love the way that one event can create such a wide range of personal experiences.

I have similar feelings about street art and graffiti, and other art forms like mail art and temporary works like those made by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. I love the idea of making something and releasing it to the world, with no intention of permanence. This is the work that feels alive in the world to me. Of course in this digital age, even the temporary can be preserved, but there is no guarantee of how long these formats will last, and if they will survive to have anyone asking questions in hundreds of years.

As a consequence of returning to school for a design and psychology degree, I’ve been thinking and asking myself a lot of questions about my intentions after I graduate. Luckily, I’m at the beginning of this journey and have a lot of time to think it over. Right now I don’t even know if I want to pursue art as a career. I’m happy to be working on answering the questions that swirl around in my head. What is the work that makes me feel joy? I keep going back to the idea of street art and other public art works. In my dream life I’d be brave enough to run around and spray paint walls in the middle of the night, but in actuality I am a staunch rule follower and would have a very difficult time knowingly doing something permanent and/or illegal.

So, I’ve been tossing around ideas of what I can do to put art out into the world that isn’t permanent. Works like urban cross stitch, chalk art or work made out of the landscape have caught my eye. I have a couple of ideas, and I’m going to start testing. I’ll share once I’ve put something out there. It will probably be small to start, but the calling is becoming too strong to ignore.

Dear readers, what is the work that makes you feel joy?

Ceiling detail from the marquee of the Little Art Theatre in Yellow Springs, OH

Thank heavens for my bestie who pokes me on Facebook, and tweets BLOG! BLOG! BLOG! at me when I miss days of blogging. When I start to stray I think about her wrath encouragement, and that gets me back on track. I have six more days of my September blog challenge.

I’ve noticed a curious lack of the sharing of images of anything created by me. I’m still in a bit of a maker’s funk. When I’m in my design classes, I dream of free time to do personal art projects, but now that I’ve been out of class for three weeks I’m floundering without the structure. Day jobs are essential, but can sometimes suck all of the energy out of you by the end of the day. And they also provide a convenient excuse to not do anything productive with your night, and to instead watch John Oliver videos on YouTube and make up hypothetical hipster baby names (Neon Gouda) for the child you’ll never have. What on earth did we do to procrastinate before the internet existed? I can’t even remember.

So, I suppose that’s it for tonight. I’m just a girl, staring at a blank page of a sketchbook, asking it to love her. Signing off from Procrastination City.