Shifting Styles
This suggestion is not going to be for everyone but for those of you who haven’t found a personal style or feel the one they have been working with has become stale. This might be the year to try to define or change up your style. Understanding what your style is and what about it is recognizable to others can be a bit tricky, but you can help yourself to see your voice (its essence, at least) by taking a class, following a tutorial or trying something you’ve never done before and seeing if there aren’t certain elements you just can’t help working with or find yourself constantly drawn to. If you can define those elements, try working with them in various ways, and then follow what you find most interesting. If you feel the need to change up your style, don’t just try and do something completely different, but use what you find most essential in your present style, and use it with new techniques, color palettes, forms or other mediums.
Here is a polymer artist whose work I find wholly recognizable, even though much what she posts online is very different. There is a sweetness and a calm, simplistic approach to her sculptural forms and imagery that is combined in such a way as to be very unique to her. I am partial to Afsaneh Tajvidi‘s snails. I don’t have any particular affinity to snails myself, but the perky stance and cute little faces make these little guys rather irresistible. Take a look through her Flickr albums and see if you can identify what makes her work so cohesive in its style.
These cute pieces may not be in themselves inspirational if you work in edgy or organic shapes, for instance, but trying to define Tajvidi’s style can help you find yours. You can do this with your favorite artist’s work as well, whether they work in polymer or other materials. It’s discovering what is uniquely individual in a body of work that will make it easier to see it in your own.
On that note, a very, very happy New Year and all the best to you and yours as you embark on another wonderful year of creativity and discovery.
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