Why?

Do you ever have those moments where you ask yourself, "why am I doing this?" By saying "this" I'm referring to anything you do creatively.

One of my creative activities also happens to be my job, computer animation. I love creating objects and environments in 3d but there are times when something, someone (often clients) cause me to ask myself "why am I doing this?"

Often, I have to remind myself why I began working in computer animation in the first place. I must think back to that naive childlike state where the world was an open book. When all I could think about was working for a New York based computer animated movie studio. I have to remember what it was that I originally loved about computer animation and in reflecting on why I began I find the inspiration to press on. That's why I watch computer animated movies. I love movies in general but computer animtated movies remind me that I love what I do (even though I'm light years away from anything I've ever seen on the big screen... the small screen too).

So, I guess it's important to stop and take the time to answer when you find yourself asking the question "why?"

Just a chair

"If you're going to enjoy a painting you've got to set aside time. You must not expect that you can take a fleeting glance and reach a conclusion, any more than you can just look at a book's dust cover... When I'm filming, in between times when they're setting up for the next work of art, I've got to sit somewhere and often I've been parked in front of something that I would not have looked at twice. But forced to sit and contemplate it, I begin to warm up to it and it opens up to me... It might never be something that we would choose as our first love, but it can speak to us. It's that giving time, looking at art peacefully, that matters. Crowded, noisy museums are not conducive to this kind of looking. I forget who it was who said that the necessity for appreciating art is a chair - which I always have, you see, because I go round in a wheelchair. So I really look."

- Sister Wendy Becket, nun and art critic, from an interview in Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion

Painted Leaves