sara shuford

i began this piece at a drink -n- draw event in atlanta. the theme was communal dreaming. 

i often write on my drawings as a way of warming up. i think i may be giving myself a tether to hold onto while i let my hands take me where they will. on this piece, i wrote “make art without concern for profundity”. 

i almost always feel a need to start my drawings with some sort of thesis. i deeply believe that making art is its own reward, and yet i am also deeply afraid of having nothing to say.

on the theme of communal dreaming, the hosts of the drink -n- draw asked us to imagine new possibilities and new futures. how can we get to utopia without first imagining it? this is something i think about often now, after trying to think of what to say with my work resulted in saying nothing for so long. now, instead of waiting to be able to draw answers, i draw questions. I think this rediscovery of the speculative is a piece of what has allowed me to draw again.

i get in my own way when I ask “what profound thing can i say?” instead of asking “what if?”

it’s become clear to me that silliness and playfulness help me actually draw, while seriousness and concern for profundity only help me criticize myself until all creativity comes to a halt. swirls of color and smears of ink are messages carried from something outside of me, brought inside of me and channeled out again. maybe my art will be profound on accident and maybe it wont. it matters more that i made it.

i am picking at this tangle of ideas and i am unsure if it can ever be truly sorted. i write this knowing it is a seed. i write this in resistance of the part of me that thinks i must only publish the profound.