Frustration

I've noticed that an artwork that started out feeling fresh can have a frustrating way of feeling a little old, a little dated, a little too known, once it's completed, and certainly once it's sent out into the sea of art, bobbing up and down with other expressions of art.

It can feel like everything has been done visually -- research after what seemed like a "novel" use of material or a "novel" form or a "novel" process can reveal similar uses of the material (or its equivalent) or the form or the process at an earlier time. Even "new" concepts are often retreads and tweaks of old ideas or observations, whether unintentionally mimicked or blatantly aped.

Yet, and perhaps informed by these frustrations, uniqueness can emerge in an interplay between concept, process and visual language.