Solicitous in Sackville

So as some of us may feel, this week was a bust creatively. I’m in a rut of sorts, I spent weeks just making so many things and this week, especially after the crits, I’m just done. I wasn’t happy with certain things and a few just seemed to not be working out like I had planned. Of course I am happy with certain things, just as a whole I feel uninspired. Right now I am not motivated to make anything. Maybe it’s a rut from being dumped, or possibly drinking a bit too much lately, which could also stem from getting dumped or just stress in general, maybe just over thinking content and not being able to move forward with any concrete ideas. I don’t know what it is but its making me even more stressed. I worry that I won’t be living up to my own expectations, which for me are ALWAYS too high. I want to make things and be happy, but to do that I don’t know whether to go to grad school, or apply for residencies or take a year off and just work at the hospital again and make art and maybe get into the gallery scene in Ottawa. 

With grad school I don’t know if I’m ready for that type of environment yet, I don’t even know if I’m good enough to get in. I have shit all to put on my CVxcept for a piece that I submitted to the Sweetest Little Thing silent auction which my mother bought and an honorable mention for the Fine Arts Department sculpture prize, which is pretty much just saying you were the first loser. I’ve never had a show and have nothing to entice people to accept me into their schools. My artist statement is a bore and I’m not sure my art is good enough to compete against soooo many other applicants, I don’t even know if I’ll be able to get a damn Struts show.

Residencies seem a bit more reasonable for me at the moment but again the issue of competition and my lacking requirements come up. I also don’t think my parents will think it’s beneficial to be put up in a place to work on art, not be paid and that isn’t affiliated with an “educational” institution. Another thing that doesn’t make me seem a good candidate for any of these thing is that I don’t have a very solid body of work. I have a whole crap ton of “half projects”, a few paintings here, some drawings there but not much that relates to one another or even very much that I would like to explore and expand upon. 

I’m probably over thinking things and overreacting but I needed to take out my doubts in a different place then my art. So I’ve just poured all of my worries and frustrations onto the internet and frankly I’m embarrassed. I would like to get some discussions going and maybe some worries other people have about being in art school and what awaits them afterwards? 

 - Elizabeth Bissonnette