CONSISTENCY

"The finish of an art piece or craftwork comes not from how one ends a work, but from how one begins and continues the project."

Dave Hegeman

D (Daelim) Museum

Last Tuesday my friends and I originally planned to visit D-Museum (Daelim Museum), a museum that is located inside a neighbourhood in Hangangjin (it's near Itaewon). However, when we arrived the place was so packed up. The guy in charge informed us that due to the super long queue, we would have to wait at least an hour to reach the entrance door.

Maybe it was because the exhibition was one that focuses on youth that most of the visitors were young people. The exhibition seems to be interesting, nevertheless we eventually decided that with the little time we had, we'd rather go to a nearby coffee shop and talk.

Stella Ramamonjisoa

So we climbed our way up to the bus stop while making several stops to take pictures. I did not plan to do any blog post, to be quite honest I haven't been doing art/photography-related stuff for the past few months. I came out to meet the girls for the sole purpose of spending time with them, especially since it's our first meeting in 2017.

But then... being surrounded with Kamila and her joyful laughters she let out whilst capturing her friend's pose that reached my ears, the sweet French Stella with her spontaneous shots and invitations for wefie, and also the neighbourhood that wasn't only quiet but was also aesthetically pleasing, I felt like something inside of me was suddenly alive again. Although deep down I knew that due to lack of continuous practice I wouldn't be as fast as before at finding and spotting good objects and angle, I still took out my phone. Slowly but sure, I started exploring with my phone. And yes, it was awkward and freezing and I was a little bit unsure at first, but the more I took shots, the more it felt natural.

Later at night during my subway ride I looked through the pictures we took that day. Somehow that simple act of scrolling through my photo library became much more intense. I started paying attention to the details; conversations, gestures and feels behind the pictures. The next day, March 1st would be a national holiday so the train was insanely packed with people, noise and sweats but I was too excited with the pictures I paid zero attention to them. Then everything seemed to be a lot more quiet and a thought popped up in my mind.

"I think I haven't felt this content in such a long time," a moment of clarity, it was. All of a sudden I was reminded of how I used to feel towards things I genuinely enjoyed the most. I realised that I haven't been writing things down in my journal and I have been doing less and less observation, drawing, singing, photography. "It's because I was too busy..." last year was indeed a super hectic and busy year for me, but my Korean painter housemate with her work as an art teacher, competitions and exhibitions she had to participate in, and ministry she committed herself to, she persisted on painting even in the midst of all that. So being busy clearly wasn't a good enough excuse for me to stop creating. What if it was because I lacked technical skills and formal training? Without them I wouldn't be able to create good enough works, right? But no, it was also just an excuse.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't strive for technical expertise, we should, and it is one of my long term goal too. But I have come to realise now that creativity, technical facility, aesthetic insights and talents are not enough to achieve, in and of themselves, professional excellence as an artist. An article released by comment magazine talked about the importance of being follow-through, meaning, some artists are set apart because "they diligently continued on their pieces until they were truly completed." That basically led me to the question of how am I going to finish any of my works (and become an artist, hopefully) if I barely start at all?

So here I am, challenging myself to create more and better, something that would require overcoming all the "if only and what ifs" and owning up to my false perfectionism. Let's be more consistent this year, shall we?

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Picture: Stella Nikiko, Yong Kamila, Stella Ramamonjisoa, Dania Azmie / Brush: Stella Nikiko / Location: Neighbourhood where D-Museum is located at, Hanganjin, Seoul, South Korea