A fine line between art and the rest

Days like this, where everything seems so quiet, where I stare at the blank page and knowing fully well the potential that exists within this medium, yet I lag in my start. My Wacom tablet there on the right, mocking me with its unplugged usb cable. I so badly wish to illustrate, but what, and for what purpose?

Then I look into projects that I might be able to take part in yet all seem so typical, so dull, so….so directmail-ish?. Maybe I should focus on something handcrafted. That always lifts me back into the innocence of when I was a child and Elmer’s glue seemed like the perfect tool to create anything out of thin air. I remember spending hours outside, after school, looking for the perfect fallen leaves to collect, in order to carefully layout and use in a beautiful greeting card which would be given to my parents after they would come home from work. Never did I think that those leaves would wilt and turn brown after a day or two. Elmers glue could only do so much, but what joy it was to work with my hands and to make something that no one else in this world (or at least that is what my seven-year old mind thought) had made. I still long for that in my graphics, the innovation, the personalization, the one and only feeling.

Being in the industry for over 10 years seems to have jaded my perspective at least in ways of how this art/skill has turn turned into a consumer driven business. For its seems that  now all I concentrate is on, what am I selling? who is the consumer? is the call to action clear enough? can this be implemented in-store, or can we take it out of home also?

I admire when I look at portfolios of those just coming out of college, for they still have the beautiful spirit of CREATION. Don’t get me wrong I know that there are some amazing designers out there pushing the envelope in all sorts of ways, but they are few and rare in comparison to the rest. Just take a look daily into your mail box and you will find plenty of advertisements that are barely trying to connect with you. It’s a bit de-heartening to see them, knowing fully well what it takes to just even produce a small flyer.

Not sure where I am going with this, I just have a deep feeling that I need to let go of typing and go find my Elmer’s glue immediately, and just do something, ANYTHING that never existed before.