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I fell out my bag and into another one.

> > > > > I fell out my bag and into another one.

If I were to put money on it, over the past three or four years I’d say the number one question I would get when catching up with an old friend or in a brief introduction to a new one is “Spence, you paint anything new lately?”

At the time of writing this, the last time I put paint/pastel/pen/marker/pencil/Montana to canvas was June 13, 2024 and the terrifying thought that has been bouncing around in my brain over and over again for the past 11+ months is: I might have fallen out of love with painting.

I might have fallen out of love with painting.

This is not the first time and I doubt it is the last, but this time feels more significant.

In the past when I would fall out of love with painting it would come with more melancholy. A feeling of forlornness like with a lover. Wistfully dreaming back to a time when things felt “right”. The pitfalls of chasing inspiration and a muse.

This time feels more like frustration. Like the energy is building up within me and it needs an alternative outlet. The energy is there but I see the blank canvas and the clean paintbrush and cold easel and it just doesn’t feel like enough. The concepts, ideas, and mockups still come to my head like they always have, but I feel like the concepts, ideas, and mockups were never the problem, it was everything around them. The unfortunate reality is that I don’t think I enjoy being “an Artist™” the way it feels like one is expected to be in this era and I may have bought a little too much into a system I did not fully understand at first.

In the pursuit of legitimizing myself, my art, and my craft in all the ways artists are told to nowadays I found myself feeling less legitimized. I believe the dependency on social media was starting to warp how I viewed my practice and myself as an artist. Everything needed to be documented both precisely and aesthetically. Think of the metrics! Think of the analytics! Think of the audience! Engagement! Engagement! Engagement! This is an attention economy! You are a brand! You must make “content!” Blah, blah, blah.

My issue with it all was the superficiality. When I first created my Instagram account in January 2017 it was purely to serve as a repository. A portfolio of sorts I could quickly send to someone for proof of artistry. “Hey I’m actually painting and creating things instead of claiming it and putting on airs like I feel like half the ‘artists’ in this city do.” I wanted it to be a showcase of skill, talent, passion, and creativity. Followers and likes were the least of my concern. Do y’all SEE what I’m doing with these pigments?

I somewhat blame myself for this frustration...

I think in the midst of trying to get bigger faster, I started to neglect the process. I started to lose sight of some of my original motivations and goals. I decided to try and find my inspiration in a muse or two or three. I sometimes bit off more than I could comfortably chew in the balancing act that comes with having a career that funds your passions.

At first, art was something just as natural to me as walking and running. I can vividly remember being 5 years old and getting disciplined by my father for drawing on the walls of my childhood home in Gresham Park. I can remember going to church with my grandmother (Rest in Power, Clotee) in Columbus, GA and her packing a miniature notebook, a pen, and a sandwich bag full of green grapes cause she knew my preschool aged brain would not be able to pay attention for the length of the morning service as I fidgeted around in my lil-man-church-suit and sketched away. I can remember all the time I would spend designing clothes and sneakers and masks and cartoon characters and cars in the margins of the notes for my U.S. Government & Economics course freshman year of high school, much to the chagrin of the teacher as it would distract neighboring students on occasion (Rest in Power, Mr. Jackson).

The artistry was always there, it was just never focused, or properly channeled into something. Like walking and running at a very high level but heading nowhere at all. And so it started to feel like the further I walked and the faster I ran, the further I got away from what gave me the urge to walk and run in the first place, and the more fatigued my creative muscles became.

Forgive the melodrama but with the addition of rose colored blinders on, I missed the forest and the trees, and now I sit here eight years later lost in the woods.

CREATIV BLOC exists as a documentation of my metaphorical journey back to civilization. Whether I must follow the rivers and lakes I’m used to, the northernmost star directing me towards the Old Man, or just hope and pray that my GPS signal goes through, the goal of CREATIV BLOC is to showcase the winding and haphazard process of getting back in your bag.

To paraphrase a quote from (arguably) the greatest basketball player of all time, there is always more than one way to move past a wall. Sometimes the wall is tangible, sometimes the wall is in our head, but with enough trial, error, and creativity, no wall is insurmountable.

Call it a blog, call it a journal, call it a vault. Whatever you would like to call it, with CREATIV BLOC the mission is an effort in pushing one's boundaries and limitations creatively. Some of the contents of CREATIV BLOC will be longform like this, some of it will be shortform, some of it will be video, some of it will be audio. Some of it will be personal and vulnerable and introspective. Some of it will be funny, quick, and entertaining (to me at least lol). Sometimes it will be raw. Sometimes it will be highly polished. From music, to visual art, to design, to fashion, to poetry, the bounds are nonexistent. Just know that regardless of what form of media you see in this space as I fumble around the thicket of my mind once again: it will be creative.

Stay tuned.

CREATIV

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CREATIV BLOC | AN INTRODUCTION