The Creative Graveyard

Anyone who’s an artist knows how much of a pain in the ass it can be. A lot of us, more often than not, are considered “starving artists” and there’s really no better way of saying it. We do as much as we can, whenever we can, and reap absolutely no benefits. Even so, it’s something that we can’t ignore, something that we can’t turn off. We have to create, innovate in our own little way to remind ourselves that we’re still relevant and that life isn’t just a simulation. For the moments when we can create something, no matter how good or terrible, we get to live in a place that seems authentic to ourselves. Whether you view it as escapism, a hobby, a passion, or something that called to you, it’s somehow the place you always end up. Everything you see or do is just another idea that comes to mind that you’ll either try to pursue, or let die off in the creative graveyard. Which is what this whole passage is centered around.

The premise that you’re overflowed with ideas and a need to capture them, to the point where you push them off for so long until they’re no longer something you want or value. They end up becoming burdens and you feel like you’re dragging a corpse, hoping that maybe when you reach that destination, you can resurrect it. All the while, you live in day to day life, going to your day job. Day in and day out you’re making a living however you have to, but those ideas and artistic endeavors are just falling away from you. Your spirit dies a little, because it’s almost as if you’ve had a miscarriage for a baby you wanted to birth. Though, maybe that’s better than having an abortion for a baby you thought you wanted but ended up losing your nerve. In other words, abandoning your projects because you lost the interest or motivation to deal with it. It’s a pretty fucked up cycle, but it basically just comes with the territory. I find myself always visualizing things, making all these internal plans and hypothetical ideations that ruminate for very long periods of time before I act on them. That’s a part of why I have this website as a whole honestly. It’s just a last ditch effort of trying to keep myself focused and consistent with something that allows me to create. I’m not sure how frequent that consistency will be for now, but here we are. Although, not every piece of art that I make will be presented here, there’s many things that I’ve left out. Some of it will be used specifically for these posts, and maybe then added to the artwork section just to have something up for it. I just got the idea right now as I was typing this that maybe I’ll just start making posts about some of them, and why I made them the way I did, and what they mean and what not. It’ll be like an artistic diary entry, or something.

Anyway, that’s just a little personal context in relation to me about the bigger picture of the subject matter. Artists know that whether they want to or not, they’ll go any length to keep something alive. It’s like a fire that’s constantly dying and you just have to throw a few twigs into it just to keep it from extinguishing. Or, watering a plant just enough to keep it alive and well. We can’t ignore the obvious delusion that comes with some of these things, like it’s okay to let things go when they aren’t serving you. No need to act like it’ll be something that you’ll get to, knowing that you probably won’t or that the circumstances doesn’t allow for it. There are plenty of ideas that I currently have that won’t see the light of day until I’m in the position for those things, we have to remain realistic afterall. It hurts a lot less when you can just be honest with yourself about it, and admit that you need to keep going forward. Some things take a lot longer to develop than other things, since they’re undercooked and require a bit more life to be lived before they can be realized. For example, I have a book that I’m working on, a novel of sorts that I’ve been working on for basically ten years at this point. I dragged that story out for so long, making changes to themes, characters, story plots, and even the name of it. How poetic would it be for me to finish it this year, but I won’t put that kind of pressure on myself, although I do plan on giving it more time and attention soon. If I end up with a finished product by the time all is said and done, then that’s great. Although, at this point I’ve just been wanting to give it a decent plotline, nothing too stressful to manage. Not that I want to rush it or anything, but fuck it’s been a decade, you know? I mean, I’ve since come up with all sorts of other ideas, for other books and the like. Granted, I don’t think I would pursue a full length story again in that kind of way. I think I could do a collection of shorter stories, maybe compile those and come up with something interesting enough for it. That’s been my more recent idea anyway so that I don’t have to completely abandon the idea of having story-based things. It would be more manageable, and then I could keep my interest in other ones because they don’t drag out for eternity. I could maybe even do a few of them at the same time and cycle through. That’s just me getting ahead of myself about it again, but it could happen. See what I just did there? I came up with an idea, one that I consider very good and beneficial towards keeping a type of creative pursuit alive. One that also could end up in the creative graveyard. You know what? I might just also make that a thing. I’ll make a bunch of content about the stuff that failed to be completed. Look at me go, I’m just flowing in and out of myself right now.

I had a thought just the other day about my artist name, JayTheUndead. Mayhaps in an artistic sense, the name symbolizes this idea of keeping something immortal, or bringing things to life that could be considered dead dreams or remnants of a creative driven purpose. See? This is why I need to get my podcast off the ground, I just have too much shit to speak on and my fingers get cramped up typing all of this but it just won’t stop happening. All things will happen soon enough, in their own time. That’s actually the next point I wanted to make, the timing of things. Even though I gave all that background on myself in regards to my story, there was something useful that came out of it’s longevity. There was refinement and clarity. When I started that story, I barely even knew exactly what it was suppose to be, or how I was going to make it to certain parts of the story. Hell, even now I’m not sure that a lot of it is even coherent, but fuck it. It’ll be whatever it is, and I’ll be proud of that. Much like the child analogy I made earlier. Assuming you don’t disown or lose the child, It’ll have to eventually grow and find itself. In doing so, it could turn out to be a golden child, or a piece of shit that annoys you to some degree. Regardless, you’ll love and appreciate it because it’s yours. I feel that way about one of the songs I released called “Fuck it, Let’s Burn Miami!”. That song is the epitome of a train wreck. It was in development hell for a while, and I basically used the cover art of that song for the background image of my website’s homepage. That was definitely one of the things I attempted to make, with very little time or resources, but I didn’t want it to die, nor did I want to have to keep it alive with me the whole time. So, I released what I had, and let bygones be bygones. Now, the song is great lyrically, in my opinion, and the premise is great, but everything around that is too confusing and unbearable, unlistenable. I basically just kind of hit the red button on it and looked the other way. Fuck it, right? Those are just sometimes the risks I’m willing to take to get that level of satisfaction that I need to feel like I’ve stayed true to my goals.

The overarching things that I’m trying to communicate here is that it’s fine to also let things be what they are, don’t get too lost in making them perfect, sometimes they aren’t meant to be as good as we imagined them. I like to take the diamonds the same way as I take the dirt, for what it is. The good, bad, and ugly has to be apart of the routine of those who are artistically inclined. It can’t always be centered around what others think about it, this is more about feeding the soul. That said, we’ll see what ends up happening in the unforeseeable future. That didn’t even make much sense what I just said, or did it? Maybe it was artistic expression or something. No, no it was just bullshit I’m sure of it now. Anyway, If you can relate to any of that, then the mission was a success for now.