This is likely to be a rather disjointed entry; when I think about art, I think about art in images and concepts, not in words. That's probably also a large part of why I do art. There are things that, for me, simply don't fit into words.
I used to be utterly puzzled that Dad claims that he does not think in words at all. For him, thought is visual and conceptual; when he needs to speak, it comes out in words without any kind of preview. He programs. He has the type of logic that computers can parse; he also has a quiet, dry, twisty sense of humor and a knack for saying things in ways that groups of people like. He doesn't, however, translate well. He doesn't take a concept he understands and break it down into simpler smaller bits that someone entirely unfamiliar with the concept can easily parse; to understand Dad, you already need to know a little.
I think in words. When I speak, the sentence has gone through my brain first, like words on a page or words spoken into my ear. Often, it has gone through several revisions before it makes it to the purely physical mechanisms of speech. When I type, it goes through yet another revision, as I poke and twist at the language to make it more precisely fit what I meant. I repeat things over and over in my head - things I have said, things I don't intend to say, fragments of fiction or nonfiction, things other people have said to me or to the general public.
Most of the time, there are words in my head, in the back of my head or right up in the front. Words distract and interest me. I read obsessively. I read all the time. The wonders of the Internet have distracted me a little from printed matter; there is always something new to read, something I haven't seen, something that has only just appeared. But I go back to printed matter over and over, because it is perfect for that. I read and reread; any book I buy will be read more than once (Unless it really fucking sucks. I'll make an exception for that.).
I think in words. I think in words and concepts that I've digested and remade and reinvented, and I think in words and concepts that are bare skins over whole-cloth copies of ideas I got somewhere else. Repetition both bores and fascinates me. The same thing over and over irritates me; but make it theme and variation, and it will hold my attention almost indefinitely.
Words are images, and images are words, and for me, there's a space between them that makes them two entirely different things. I think in images, too. I can put them together, I can use them together, I can use one to describe the other, but there is a tiny gap between images and words that really may as well be the Grand Canyon.
When I'm making art images, if I'm thinking in words, something is different than if I'm thinking in images. I can do that, too. Verbal thinking intrudes upon and overrides the part of me that thinks in images. Sometimes I can distract or put away the part of me that thinks in words. Then, I produce images that have something that I can't describe in words, because it doesn't come from words.
The feel of it is like a trance. I've called it "artspace" before. I can focus for a time entirely on what I see, and on making images that correspond to the nonverbal images and concepts I am thinking in. I lose time that way; when I get to that place in my mind, there is nothing else in the world except making images. Eventually, I am done, or I get distracted, and I fall out of it and back into my usual patterns of thinking, and it's like coming out of a euphoric daze.
I make art because there are concepts inside my head that I want to look at from the outside. I make art because it's a pleasure to make art. I make art because I want to present it to others and see how they think about what I thought. I make art because I want to make some kind of connection between the words in my head and the images in my head.
I make art for the same reasons I write, and I write for the same reasons I make art.
... 5000?
Depressed
