Gabby and I were talking about this one day after a lecture we heard by an advertising designer named Kent Middleton who also spoke about the fact of never being comfortable-always drive for more. Gabby is very good with coming up with counter arguments to what I usually find to be great advice.. and these counter arguments are usually really convincing and also good... advice. She basically said, as I remember (correct me if I'm wrong or off) that while always striving to be great and better is a wonderful thing, but to NEVER be satisfied...is a bit horrible. Because if your never satisfied with your work... then.... whats the point..how are you happy. Which makes sense.. because you should be happy with your work.
but I think that what these people mean.. specially in fashion design is that you have to ALWAYS be working towards and coming up with NEW and better ideas. Which, this is something that you, the designer, should thrive on..you should love to do it. Because being satisfied and comfortable with your work can leave you stagnant and standing in stale water. So while your work makes you happy and you can be proud of it.. you should still want to produce better.
basically.
The lecture by Kent Middleton was really entertaining and inspiring also. He gave me some great tips on life that I was happy to already be practicing. (OH! and by the way Michael Knight mentioned that his next collections inspiration comes from Dinosaurs and beetles... and I thought that was really ironic because my Mod collection for Intro to fashion was Mod meets Beetles and my Rockabilly collection was (bc it got canceled) going to be Rockabilly meets Dinosaurs. woop)
anyway.
Kent Middleton spoke about how we, as artist and designers, are CONSTANTLY looking for stimuli. (stimulous junkies he called us) We are CONSTANTLY or should constantly be looking and reading and seeing and exploring and discovering new and foreign things. ALWAYS. He mentioned that we should not only listen and watch music and movies that we dislike..but we should emerse ourselves in them, because. we should know about everything because anyyyythhinnnggg can be innssppiiirraaaatiiiiioooonnnnnaaaahhhhh. (inspiration-ah).
along with that, trying new things, he mentioned that we should take different routes places that we usually dont take..etc
(p.s. I can brush my teeth with my left hand!!! yyeaaaahhhhhhh. go jamie. go jamie)
Kent Middleton and Ruben Toledo (I saw his illustrations in an exhibit 2 weeks ago) both share the same basic view of a philospher I learned about in art history last week named Charles Baudelaire, "The artist doesn't need to go back in an earlier time for subject matter or illustration, there is enough heroism in our own world."
Basically.... we have enough in our modern day to create art. We don't have to use what's already been done. We need to look FORWARD for inspiration and stop borrowing from the past. (although.. i mean... its really good to know the past and I dont think its necessarily a bad thing to borrow things..)
but yeah, I like how things are connecting like this. Both Knight and Middleton commented on being paatiieeennnt also. thats improtant. work work work.
annnnd finallyyyyy Kent Middleton spoke of not getting hung up in your own work. If something is a success.. great. move on to something new. Getting caught up and trying to just recreate that sucess will lead to failure..example.. Vanilla Ice. get over it.
life life life.
:)
On my way from class yesterday? I saw some daylilies..which reminded me of my mom.. :( So I picked some of the dead ones off of the plant because..the dead ones look really awesome dried and flattened. (and I was helping prune the plant. not stealing. tyvm) They were all gooey becuase of the rain. I loved the texture of them.
His philosophy didn't just seem to be for his work but for life in general, which of course sounded like it was focused around his work. But if you're constantly focusing on "what's better" and "improvement" it becomes too easy to get caught up in the future what you did wrong, rather than enjoying where life is taking you.
ReplyDeleteThere's so many aspects of life that can pass you by if you don't stop, breathe, and smile. We're going to have a ridiculous collection of advice at the end of the next 2-3 years of lectures. :)
And by the way.
OF COURSE YOU STILL HAVE THE INTERNSHIP.
P.S.S
I like your dead flower pictures.
:D
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