Calendars and Pie Charts

2010

Medium: Watercolors and ink on paper

Dimensions: Various

The calendar is an outcome of my artistic crisis that lasted for about two years in 2009-2010, correlating with the world crisis. I lost the meaning and feeling of why I was doing the work at all, the urgency seemed to be gone. The more professional the setting in which I exhibited was, the less playful I was becoming, until the joy was totally lost. In order to change this, I needed to start a daily practice of small, seemingly insignificant activities not directly related to my work. For example, I was making maps to visualize my condition, and by counting the letters in “professional artist” and “creative person,” I made a pie chart, realizing that “professional artist” took a larger part. During these difficult years, I developed an annual calendar where I would write daily thoughts, in a way mind map drafts, looking for the patterns of confusion and joy. The words Fear, Fame, Fail, and Fake made up a big part of this search. So did PLAY – this word kept repeating on this calendar/mind map and it also became a solution to go through this artistic crisis. For some years that followed the invention of this calendar, I created and used it for myself and my friends who also found it helpful.