So far, in my waking life during this lifetime, I have not had any artistic training – just the vision, the will to follow it, attempt to understand it (for lack of a better word), create/translate it into something I can experience freshly without relying too heavily on memory or written words, and just work towards establishing more explicit links and portals between other realms and my day-to-day. Also, a lot of the work I do seems to just come through me, and putting it in a form that enables its sharing with other people builds on different dimensions of meaning.

I started with digital because I have access to computers, I am somewhat familiar with them, and a computer just happened to be at hand when I first felt guided to “ground” one of the visions. I’ve kept working with computers, because, so far, I’ve found it’s a pretty good way to be truthful to my vision, and I guess it’s easier for me to train myself and experiment.

Up to now, my technique has been to put myself through hours, days, months of figuring stuff out until it starts to spark and go the way that feels right. I can usually go back and forth between the steps I’ve taken and learn. I can usually save something and come back to it without having to worry too much about space limitations… I can pretty much work at home, late night / early dawn at computer labs, deserted coffee shops, or occasionally even borrow a friend’s computer and use higher-end programs… Limitations with digital media? Accessible prints, even those on canvas, usually end up kind of flat. Looking at a computer screen can get kind of frustrating. Having electricity and electronics as the core foundation of a creative-artistic interface may occasionally weigh down one’s energy, so I’ve started to experiment mixing digital and traditional.

I can see different types of energetic exchanges between an artist and her/his work via brushstrokes, digital drawing pads, point and click, and/or looking at a flow of electrons vs a painting surface. There is something about projecting your energy via a brush and your hands, and onto the surface/material you are working with, that I really want to explore more fully...

Eventually, I want to explore traditional media a lot more – yet, so far, there are a few things that I associate with traditional media that hamper my creative process, and of course, this is something I need to work through (and I would love to read peoples’ thoughts and recommendations on this)… First off, with traditional media it’s harder for me to envision how one of my pieces may go through different, somewhat parallel paths of unfolding and exploration by, for example, saving it with different filenames. Also, thinking about how much paint costs, the fact that there is no “undo” … all of this kind of gets me more into thought/decision/evaluation than into action-free-flow. It’s like, it takes me a while to get going… and then there’s some more hurdles along the way. From one perspective, I guess it might boil down to a matter of (self)trust, giving in to the process, and figuring out a way to get more comfortable with traditional media (leftover paint, brushes and supplies are welcome!)

Yet, there’s another block that I have to deal with in order to more fully embrace traditional media as an outlet for my creative expression. Even though it might not always be the case for apprenticeships, I usually link traditional media to academia (and this might well be another topic).

This block I care less about, but I see it get in my way when talking to more “schooled” artists and critics… Having done a bit of work in epistemology, sociology of academia, and history of western thought, I associate academic settings with logical dichotomies, intellect, criticism, discussion, elitism, the erudite, hegemony, outer-imposed hierarchies, competitiveness, credentialism, curriculum, a preoccupation for mastering technique and methods, an over-emphasis on form, an over-emphasis on art history (mainly from an Eurocentric point of view), and an underlying assumption that a ‘true’ artist should strive to learn/master/be fluent with all that has been said and done [etc] before she/he can actually have a bit of ‘authority’ to put forth something of her/his own… Of course, it’s not like digital media in academia completely escapes any of this…

Nonetheless, I prefer rather more introspective and intuitive ways of learning, experimentation, and expression… and all together, I prefer to avoid academic and mainstream settings when doing (and learning about) art. So far, digital media has helped me go about this more freely. I know there has to be a multitude of approaches to traditional media in non-mainstream academic / non-academic settings, including apprenticeships… I’ve yet to come in contact with them. I would be really interested to read about how visionary artists coming from an academic, traditional-media background have sorted this out... so if you know of this, please share your experience!

Further away from my core concerns, I also feel that, regardless of content, traditional media has been a lot more studied, categorized, conceptualized, compartmentalized, intellectualized, [etc], and I see that a lot of people get into this train of experience more easily when interacting with art put forth in readily-identifiable traditional media. Also, there’s always this implicit or explicit reference to the great masters that have done such breathtaking, ground breaking work in the past… With digital, I see that a lot of the times people struggle with getting past the "is digital really art?" dilemma, but then, if the content is really there (which is usually the case with visionary art), I see more direct and holistic trains of experience coming about. In my opinion, the fact that there has been less widespread study and discussion of digital visionary art, forces people to deal with it in more personal ways. And knowing of the existence of digital media, and the ability of mixing it with traditional media, also benefits artists that only work with traditional media, in the sense that it creates this uncertainty in the viewer and opens more space to experience art in increasingly holistic ways.

[I originally posted this as a response in the discussion board for Digital Visionary Art, (facebook group)]