Observations on Archivism
Mar. 11th, 2020 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xinjinmeng๐ The past three days, I have been going through my collection of physical sketchbooks. There were over 72 books, with the earliest book dated June 1989. I have digitized many of the pictures, but not all of them.
๐ง For almost all the pictures, I could remember the head-space that I was in, my purpose for drawing them, and my emotional state at the time.
But there were far more pictures when I couldn't remember the date, time, or place.
๐ก I was hoping to find some great idea that I'd forgotten, or some fantastic energy that I'd lost. I did not. I remembered far too much of this stuff, and I've been repurposing it for years.
โ The first 50% of the collection (1989-1994) makes up 65% of the scanned material. Much of the later stuff were simple iterations on previous pictures, working designs. But also, much of the later stuff has been aggressively scanned and posted to the Internet, already. It's not until June 2018 that I started working 100% digitally.
๐ฎ Because I was planning to trash the sketchbooks after use, it was easier to destroy them to get them scanned, tearing or cutting out pages. It took eight trips to carry the books out to the dumpster, which is next to the daycare center. I am left with the thoughts that the pages needed to be covered up so my neighbors don't find out that I collect cartoon porn. ๐
๐ There's something oddly cathartic about throwing out the autographs of cancelled people.
๐ It's one thing to find a skipped page or two. That happens. It was more surprising to find a half-dozen books that had a dozen or more pages that were blank. Two books were completely blank!
๐ค A fair amount of this art was better than I remembered.
๐ I don't have any mentors. I have a few idols, but I've never had a mentor. When I make my art, no one has worked close with me in a supervisory capacity with the intent to help my skills grow. I've had teachers, but that's about it โ advice from skilled people to push me along. There's been too many times where I made unsatisfactory output and received no guidance whatsoever; I would either be paid or not. Looking through some of these pictures makes me angry that no one was helping me, but I will take peace that the universe doesn't owe me anything.
โจ I had been worried that my art was becoming too stylized. I have been becoming more of a newspaper-style cartoonist, deliberately flattening scenes for talking-heads conversations, and I've been doing far less perspective or spatial work. Now I wonder if I should be playing to my strengths.
๐ There was very little superhero artwork in here, and today I can't even imagine wanting to draw a superhero comic.
๐ฒ There was a fair amount of art inspired by role-playing games. I had gravitated more towards story-agnostic games like Rolemaster, GURPS, Hero, Amazing Engine and the like. Story-heavy games like Vampire or Star Wars felt very stifling; that other people had made up a lot of the story without you, and that you were specifically discouraged from doing anything that might be considered off-script. Also there was very little gaming set in realistic or historical worlds. (There's something very symptomatic of nerd culture when the defining cyberpunk tabletop is "Shadowrun".) There were quite a few characters in here, both my art and others', that were far more unique and special than I might have appreciated, at the time.
๐คจ I draw the same pictures over and over again, a lot.
๐ง I am soooooooooo glad I didn't grow up on the Internet. I worry that my feelings would have been weaponized. Or that I might have fallen into drawing more fan art than original art.
๐ I need to date-stamp more often.
๐ Sometimes I found messages to my future self, that said, "You can do this", "You are made of stars", or "I believe in you." Thank you, past me. ๐
๐ง For almost all the pictures, I could remember the head-space that I was in, my purpose for drawing them, and my emotional state at the time.
But there were far more pictures when I couldn't remember the date, time, or place.
๐ก I was hoping to find some great idea that I'd forgotten, or some fantastic energy that I'd lost. I did not. I remembered far too much of this stuff, and I've been repurposing it for years.
โ The first 50% of the collection (1989-1994) makes up 65% of the scanned material. Much of the later stuff were simple iterations on previous pictures, working designs. But also, much of the later stuff has been aggressively scanned and posted to the Internet, already. It's not until June 2018 that I started working 100% digitally.
๐ฎ Because I was planning to trash the sketchbooks after use, it was easier to destroy them to get them scanned, tearing or cutting out pages. It took eight trips to carry the books out to the dumpster, which is next to the daycare center. I am left with the thoughts that the pages needed to be covered up so my neighbors don't find out that I collect cartoon porn. ๐
๐ There's something oddly cathartic about throwing out the autographs of cancelled people.
๐ It's one thing to find a skipped page or two. That happens. It was more surprising to find a half-dozen books that had a dozen or more pages that were blank. Two books were completely blank!
๐ค A fair amount of this art was better than I remembered.
๐ I don't have any mentors. I have a few idols, but I've never had a mentor. When I make my art, no one has worked close with me in a supervisory capacity with the intent to help my skills grow. I've had teachers, but that's about it โ advice from skilled people to push me along. There's been too many times where I made unsatisfactory output and received no guidance whatsoever; I would either be paid or not. Looking through some of these pictures makes me angry that no one was helping me, but I will take peace that the universe doesn't owe me anything.
โจ I had been worried that my art was becoming too stylized. I have been becoming more of a newspaper-style cartoonist, deliberately flattening scenes for talking-heads conversations, and I've been doing far less perspective or spatial work. Now I wonder if I should be playing to my strengths.
๐ There was very little superhero artwork in here, and today I can't even imagine wanting to draw a superhero comic.
๐ฒ There was a fair amount of art inspired by role-playing games. I had gravitated more towards story-agnostic games like Rolemaster, GURPS, Hero, Amazing Engine and the like. Story-heavy games like Vampire or Star Wars felt very stifling; that other people had made up a lot of the story without you, and that you were specifically discouraged from doing anything that might be considered off-script. Also there was very little gaming set in realistic or historical worlds. (There's something very symptomatic of nerd culture when the defining cyberpunk tabletop is "Shadowrun".) There were quite a few characters in here, both my art and others', that were far more unique and special than I might have appreciated, at the time.
๐คจ I draw the same pictures over and over again, a lot.
๐ง I am soooooooooo glad I didn't grow up on the Internet. I worry that my feelings would have been weaponized. Or that I might have fallen into drawing more fan art than original art.
๐ I need to date-stamp more often.
๐ Sometimes I found messages to my future self, that said, "You can do this", "You are made of stars", or "I believe in you." Thank you, past me. ๐
