Welcome to my digital logbook. Here I document my creative journey.
The entries are chronologically organized and differ in their nature depending on the type.
DOC-01314
DEUS: 198/1872936—12
REX-13: 472-123864/102
[OLEX] First and foremost, I want to thank Jimmy for agreeing to do this joint entry. I’ve been following you on Twitter for about two years now and it’s safe to say that your transparency and reflections of your creative journey have given me the confidence to share my own. Why don’t you introduce yourself for the record and talk about what you are working on right now.
[JIMMY] As a brief introduction–hi, I am Jimmy. I am 19 years old and currently a sophomore attending university in Nebraska, and I am majoring in Textiles, Merchandising, Fashion Design-Apparel Design. I’ve been informally studying, learning, and creating clothing and other pieces for roughly 3 years, and formally for roughly 1 year. One of my major projects that I’ve pursued was creating a brand, Handmade, which was abruptly halted and shut down due to circumstance and personal reasons. As of recent, I’ve been doing a lot of drafting and learning about patterns, and more about tailoring, measurements, and so forth. I’ve also been fighting an internal battle with my career path, as well as the “logic v.s. abstract”, and how I will go about expressing and representing those ideas in the real world through how I envisioned them to be showcased.
[O] One of the reasons I wanted to talk about the topic of analysis paralysis with you is because I think we are alike in how we strive to learn, optimize, and perfect. Over time, I became aware that it’s a double-edged sword. On one side, we end up learning a lot and increasing our exposure to design elements and ways to express ourselves. But on the other side, there are seldom any tangible results from that knowledge. Furthermore, it all ends up being theoretical, and in a practice such as fashion design, I believe that most progress happens when you work on a project from start to finish. It’s like you told me when I invited you to the blog: it’s rare that you feel fully prepared for any project you’re working on, and the only way to overcome that is to just act and learn as you go. You can’t perfect what doesn’t exist.
[J] 100%. I’ve had to learn that lesson countless times and I am still learning that lesson today. Even if you feel like you’ve prepared for the occasion, there are still variables and instances that you definitely didn’t think of and when that time comes, you have to face it head on with perseverance. Cut yourself some slack. Understand and be consciously aware that things won’t always happen the way you want them too. At the end of the day, going with the flow is, in my opinion, the best way to get yourself through a situation that you aren’t familiar with, and once you’ve reached familiar grounds, then you’re able to maneuver comfortably. –It is all about perspective, and once you understand that, every fault will be turned into an opportunity for learning, growing, and another reason to continue on.
[O] When I try to imagine what it was like to be a painter or a tailor before social media, you probably had to sit down and practice the technique to master it. Even if you read all the books about it, you still had to do it. I believe that the addition of video content flipped a switch in our brains which makes us feel as if we’re actually practicing it ourselves, leading to a false sense of learning. It’s a form of active procrastination. The vast amount of content on social media and the internet can easily lead to decision fatigue and difficulty in making creative choices. This happened to me, as I kept browsing and learning. I wanted to make so many things; I had the sketches ready, all the techniques learned and researched, even the fabrics. But none of that is real. It’s like warming up before a workout; you can have a great stretching session, but if you don’t end up working out after it, you will not grow muscle. Ultimately, that is the reason why I even started olex.vision. It’s my attempt to figure out what works for me, practice it, and make the journey into a project itself.
[J] It’s interesting that there is so much informative content out there, some of which hold value, but without action then can it really be considered valuable? Ofcourse, I’m speaking in terms of the person who is viewing or interacting with such information. Action equates to value, and that sentiment can be attributed to many different fields of work. In my own personal experiences, there is a lot of helpful and informative sewing content that gets recommended to me on a daily basis but if I don’t act based on the information given to me, then I’m procrastinating on it. Although, it can be argued that even if I am not acting on that information at the moment, then there is a chance that I will act on the information later down the line. Still, the point stands, I am procrastinating. If I want to learn, then I have to do it. I can’t backlog information and expect to fully regurgitate it out at 100%. You have to be fully immersed in the experience to truly understand the process from start to finish.
[O] I also want to talk to you about the need to market yourself in the age of social media. Yes, of course, not everyone wants to become an independent designer who has their own fanbase and doesn’t rely on a full-time job, but for those who do, they need to post. Going back to the artisans before social media, they didn’t have to worry about their posting schedule or about the reception of their content, let alone the editing and presentation of all that content. It’s a big toll on our brains if you think about it, especially because we try to fulfill our needs for creative expression. If the photo or the video isn’t up to our standards, we either don’t post it at all or spend more time working on that, rather than making more clothes. Jimmy, how do you think creatives can balance the demands of creating high-quality content for social media with the need to maintain their creative process and produce new work?
[J] For one, I believe that high quality work will speak for itself and I believe in word of mouth, especially in today’s world of social media. I also believe that if you know how to market yourself then you’re just adding onto the fact that your work is of high standard enough to be marketed in a way that showcases it as such. Finding the balance between marketing and standard of your work is a difficult one. It takes a lot of money, material, and time just for the garment or whatever piece of work that you are working on. Adding onto the fact that you want to market your work in a way that showcases its utmost quality, it might run your wallet back a couple. I think if you're a creative and you want to balance the demands of creating high-quality content, while maintaining a standard of high-quality work, then what you should do is define those terms. What does high-quality content mean? What is my standard for high-quality work? Once you’ve defined those terms, then you’re practically set, since you subconsciously created conditions that you believe are on par with your work ethic. But, if your conditions are out of your league, then you have to work your way up to those set conditions, and that is when you’ll be able to maintain proper balance between content and quality of work.
[O] And what about the fear of judgment? Obviously as artists one of our greatest battles is learning to show our work. For me personally, it took a while until I was confident enough in myself to show my work and talk about it. The addition of social media makes the fear constant, it’s like every month I want to completely wipe all of my posts and start fresh. Why? I think that it comes back to the permanence of our internet presence. When I say permanence I’m comparing it to a natural interaction when presenting work; you meet the person, show the work, talk about it and go about your day. But with social media it’s like you’re constantly doing that, all the time, and you never go about your day because your images and work are still out there! It would be cool if social media was like a shop that closed at a certain time and opened at another. There’s always that thought that some post isn’t performing as well, or this post doesn’t look right, social media puts a number on the art you make and it's unnatural to put a number on something as vulnerable and feeling based as art.
[J] I’ve had my battles with judgment upon my work and over the years I’ve been cautious about it at times, others not that often. Like you said, social media practically airs out your business 24/7/365 and I guess because of that, I’ve begun to be more careful of what I showcase on my social media. Sort of curating what I want or not want to be shown. To this day, I still feel hesitant to showcase works that I personally don’t feel are up to standard to what I envisioned, so I keep it out of sight. I’m still fighting that battle so I can’t give too much of my own thoughts about it, but what I can say is that you shouldn’t pay too much attention to the numbers. Create for the sake of creating and for your own sake. The numbers, engagements, likes, retweets, shares, followers, and so forth are just the additional benefits of your creations.
[O] Information overload is so high right now, there is so much content and it’s all short form content that we can just scroll through. Getting exposure to so many ideas makes it hard to focus and commit to a single creative direction for a project. Even after you start, you may be scrolling Instagram and find this one video that shows a new technique you can use in the project and now you feel as if it’s time to scrap the whole thing entirely because you didn’t use that technique. It’s like there is a gap between what you know you want to make and what you actually make. Lately I’ve been enjoying slow entertainment just to practice focusing on one thing at a time, whether it’s a book or a movie or a project. I’m not letting short form content bounce my mind around with all types of ideas at a time, at least until I’m done working on my project and it’s finished. About two months ago I remember you posted about “The Gap” idea by Ira Glass. I’m curious to learn how you came across that idea and the way in which you implemented it for yourself.
[J] Ofcourse! I came across that quote in a youtube video posted by Bliss Foster, titled, “What Happened to Streetwear?,” around the 2 minute 25 second mark the quote gets brought up. At the time, it was the first instance that I’ve ever heard of that quote by Ira Glass and it struck me. I know that my taste suits me well and when it comes to creation, I subconsciously try to implement my taste into my designs, and the result is one that I did not envision. It’s frustrating…it’s saddening, it’s sort of pathetic, like I can envision the design, I put time and effort, and the result isn’t remotely close to what I thought of, but that’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s a process, and it’s something that I’ve had to learn to persevere through. Nowadays, I’ve come to realize that it is a process and if I want to create something that I envisioned to a T, then I’ll have to keep going. I have to keep making samples over and over, and over again, because the more I make samples and revisions, the closer I will get to the final product that I initially thought of. It keeps me going til I see the end of it.
[O] I think one of the biggest realizations that helped me with analysis paralysis and unfinished projects was a switch in my approach. When starting projects, it’s easy to get lost in trying to do everything right. Planning and perfecting the plan so that everything comes out perfect and using proper techniques. I decided to move on from the idea of “When I get X, then I can start the project.” X can be anything, it can be information, plan, machine, material, skill. At the end of the day I just realized that it’s never ending, this X is every product and every video that you see online. My new approach is just to wing it, focusing on what it is that I want to make and figuring how I can make that with what I have right now. Ultimately making my work a lot more authentic and personal. The mistakes I make and the approach I take are mine alone, the actual physical creation aspect of the project where the work is born is messy and imperfect, in my own way. I think that your GURUGURU project is a similar form of abandoning perfection for the purpose of progress. What are your thoughts on chasing perfection over action?t
[J] It’s a cycle, one that I’ve yet to break, and to be honest, I don’t mind it too much. I know at some point it’s going to stab me in the back and I’ll have to face it head on. I applaud you for moving on from the idea of, “When I get X, then I can start the project,” because it’s something that I’m still dealing with. I believe a lot of creatives deal with that issue all the time, and it holds us back from simply creating with what we have, which, like you said, is a lot more authentic. I believe that it’s impossible to really make something perfect, so try to make something as close to it as possible. Continue to make garments, continue to design, make a lot of it, revise a lot of it because revision is a teacher.
[O] Jimmy, thank you again for joining me in this week’s logbook entry. Is there anything else you want to say for the record?
[J] I appreciate the feature in this entry, this is my first ever entry, and I enjoyed it.