Prey 9 / ( 13 )

Commentary Back in the day I couldn t wait to share my work with others. That only went for bigger pieces, but i never did that many sketches. The moment I had finished something I rushed off to a scanner, edited around in it and uploaded it to animexx - the artplatform targeted at anime fans in Germany. This was in the beginning of the wider Internet and it was custom to write to other people who did similar art. when i gained some small notoriety within that art community, a not well received picture got about 12 comments from friends that i also commented every picture of. good pictures were at least 40 comments strong, very succesfull pictures had their 150 comments. I invested a lot of time into that community.
I lost that excitement due to the communities getting bigger and bigger and i feel so incredibly lost. People with similarily weird styles can get very sucessfull - its not about finding pleasing aesthetics - as i thought for a long time. But there is some luck involved and usually lots of constant output and work.
And i even struggle to upload the twisted pages on my own page here - the pages that are truly dear to me of a story i really want to share with the world. I had one very succesful friend back then who usually forgot to upload her wonderful art and she was much more productive than me. I could never understand how she did not feel like sharing her work and the reception did not matter to her that much. It was not the driving force. I also create art because I need to and need to tell these stories. But reception did matter to me, too. I saw more value in a picture that was received better than in a picture that i personally thought was technically better. I did not trust my own judgement.
I wish i still had that - a circle of like minded creators supporting each other heavily. I still am lucky to have lots of people see my work and appreciate it - often repeat offenders! And i am grateful! Much of my lost joy comes probably from the fact that i myself am not investing the time anymore. That I do not write 10 times the comments i receive. I am overwhelmed by content and more often i decide to just stay with my work and continue on it than consuming other work. I feel like the space in my head for art grew smaller and the exposure to the whole world of art hightened my awareness of quality so much, that it feels a bit hopeless to participate. I am NOT hopeless at the moment, just... want to sit somewhere quiet and do nothing but work on my projects. and one day read what other people think about them.