December 28, 2024

I listened to Rick Owens' "Fashion Neurosis" interview and it made me wonder if a conservative and judgmental upbringing often gives rise to a rebelling, artistic, and likely egotistical temperament. This temperament can forge a pioneering aesthetic that is in direct reaction to the person's perceived stifling or oppressive situation. An experimental sensibility is born from a sense of feeling misunderstood. This person naturally pushes the aesthetic boundary since they are used to being on the outside. Rick talks about wanting to be a person that "champions alternative aesthetics to the the people who don't see themselves reflected in our standard aesthetics". This type has difficulty taking on the burden of nurturing a world outside of their own (in part because this person's attraction to their work was initially born from a place of rejection. As a result, their interactions are affirmations of the self and any aesthetic that they might identify with themselves).

I would like to think that the creative process doesn't need to be a lonely one. This upcoming year, I want to have my creative projects build toward community with others. I think about this all the time, but this is probably because lately my relationship to my projects feels siloed, both conceptually and in real life. The conceptual isolation and the real isolation are linked.