OhPandah 2021 - A Wee Review.

29 Dec

I have been wanting to get a wee review done of 2021 so here goes.

I started the year with a mad idea in my mind. I wanted to try and paint a Big Heid every day of the year. LOL! I’m laughing now cause it was such an impossible task but I was inspired to try it by a couple of things.

One was the passing of MF DOOM. When I was younger I didn’t really listen to much DOOM. Well, I listened to the DANGERDOOM album a lot, but that was as far as it went for some reason. It was only around 2014/15 when I was in Australia that I really got into him. Since then my love for him and his art has really deepened and I find a lot of inspiration, spiritually and philosophically, in his music and the visuals that accompany it.

So aye finding out he was gone on New Years Eve was a mad way to start the year. So thinking how incredible he was I think I just felt like I had to try and do something next level. Although I’ll be honest and say that I was pretty sure I wouldn’t last very long.

Another thing that inspired me to try and do a Big Heid everyday was this video from Struthless.

I had watched a few of his videos before this, but this one really struck a chord with me. I have always tried to do loads of things in my life but the one constant has always been my characters. They just stuck with me since I was 15 so when I saw this video and heard him saying just draw the same thing it made me realise that I had kinda did that by accident.

However recently, since starting Colour Ways, I have found myself pulled in different directions and sometimes have neglected my own work. If I’m completely honest sitting here now at the end of the year I deffos feel like I didn’t do enough of my own work this year. I don’t know why I have that feeling. Like how much is enough? Is it really about how much? Or should it be about something else? I’m not too sure but I quite like thinking that it could/should be something else.

So aye this video inspired the idea of doing a Heid everyday. Painting one a day was hard to keep up with but I did get into a regular practice of sketching a Heid every morning for a wee bit so that was a lot easier. Although saying that I didn’t manage to keep that up either. Building daily habits is hard!

I was quite proud of this Heid that I painted in the studio using brushes, again this isn’t something that I haven’t really continued to do but I’m glad I tried it. I think I should probably use this blog as a reminder of all the things that I should keep practicing.

Frodrik and OhPandah - Sauchiehall Street.

I didn’t paint the streets as much this year… as much as what exactly?

That’s the mad thing, I’m basically comparing myself to myself. The first year I painted the streets I painted like 60 heids which was a mad amount. I had been going out twice a week and did that consistently for most of summer. But doing that many has left me with this feeling that I have to maintain that amount of output.

I’m really curious about this desire to quantify things. It’s basically an ego trip, a pissing contest, top trumps. I think it’s just an immature way to relate to your own creativity but I think when we start doing things we have to go through stages and work out our relationship to them. So for me painting the streets was brand new in 2019. It was exciting and I had a lot of energy for it but I deffos think I was getting a lot of my sense of self from it at the time.

Thats a dangerous place to be because then your sense of self is wrapped up in your creative output. Which leads to feeling a bit shite when yer not keeping that up, which is the situation I have found myself in. It’s weird to admit that. Mainly because I wish it was as simple as admitting it and then I wouldn’t feel shite anymore, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. I’ve known this for ages and still I canny really shift this feeling of not doing enough. I think it’s probably connected to the amount of energy ye have inside and how much ye are using. If you squander yer creative energy, scrolling on instagram, consuming other peoples art or whatever procrastination you choose, then it can leave ye feeling guilty and that energy is kinda stuck festering inside.

The creative energy needs to get out and it has to get out in a constructive way. It needs action basically. I spend a lot of my time thinking, like so much time, and it’s fun and I like thinking about things. But there can deffos be too much thinking. And I would maybe even argue that there is active thinking and inactive thinking. Active thinking is when yer like, aw I should do this, and off ye go and do it. Inactive thinking is like when yer trying to decide what’s the best thing to do and ye canny decide and ye just go round in circles. Like deciding which takeaway to buy or what show to watch on Netflix.

That actually gets to the crux of the matter. There’s too many options. I know that hinders me. It’s funny, I just thought about the fact I have always been a worker bee. Like I have always been an employee when I have been working previously and that shapes you in a very specific way. As long as you show up everyday and are willing to work things are pretty simple. That’s the job. Show up and work. Easy.

But now I’m in this mad situation where I’m my own boss. Which is fucking amazing and I’m insanely grateful for it, but it does come with a lot of shit that I need to work out, make decisions about, and that has been a bit of a struggle. I think that’s probably why I wanted to do a heid a day. If I simplified my job down to ‘Paint One Heid A Day’ that would take away a lot of the worrying and thinking that I find myself doing. I don’t really know the answer here. I guess it just all part of the process and journey of becoming an artist.

Being an artist is pretty incredible I canny lie. It’s crazy and also a massive injustice that we aren’t all given the opportunity to be artists. I have worked hard to get where I am just now, I got sober and that was a total game changer, but I really don’t believe in the idea that hard work is the path to creative freedom and liberation. Like obviously hard work is needed, but it creates this illusion that it’s just this switch that you can flip, and off you go, hard worker on the path to your dream job as an artist.

It doesn’t, and it actually can’t work like that. Unfortunately in our current system there are limited opportunities for people and it creates pyramids basically. Where people are stuck in shite jobs they don’t like and get no nourishment for their soul, and then you have a very small amount of people who are actually getting to pursue their dreams. Those people will often tell you how they did it, HARD WORK, and tell you that you can do it too. But I really struggle with this because I know how soul destroying it can be to work a shite job. I actually find it a bit offensive when folk tell people that they can just patch their job and chase their dream. Or even that they should just chase their creative dream in their spare time, cut out frivolous luxuries like watching tv and socialising, and then you might succeed.

I disagree quite strongly with this. I disagree in spite of the fact I spend a lot of my time trying to improve my own productivity using very similar techniques. It is not the techniques that I am against. I am against how these narratives completely miss the fact that our current economic and social system is based on extraction. Extracting profit at the expense of the human experience.

I know this might sound mental and heavy political but this isn’t actually that wild to me at all. It’s really simple actually. It’s directly linked to the unhappiness I felt when I worked minimum wage jobs. I still remember exactly how that feels. My situation might be different right now but I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone. Why should the workers get paid so little when companies, especially big corporations can make so much profit. Why do we have billionaires while there are folk starving in the world? It doesn’t make any sense to me and it actually seems like a pure cliche to say all this out loud. But it’s just fucked.

That’s why I don’t like the idea of just work hard. I worked hard in my last job and they tried to keep me on the lowest wage they could. They paid all the staff as low as they could. That is how they extract profit. I wish that there was more transparency and perhaps more self awareness in the art world. I get it, I get that people end up living vicariously through artists. I have done it my whole life. But our world shouldn’t be based on living vicariously through other peoples success. We could actually live in a world where we were all co-creating our existence, with a focus on connection rather than consumption.

So that’s what I wish, I wish we could move away from consumerism. I was a consumer for years. I still am, even though I have always liked to think I’m not. I thought I wasn’t because I don’t really buy clothes and shit like that. Your classic consumerism, but what I have always done is consumed other peoples art and creativity. I consumed so much and it has often left me with the feeling that they are these magical people and that I could never do that. This feeling of inadequacy is a big part of the global economy, Jamie Catto describes it as “an abundance of lack” in his Ram Dass documentary - Becoming Nobody.

It also makes me think about this podcast with Sonya Renee Taylor where she talks about us all climbing ‘The Ladder’. The ladder is basically the system, the system of comparison which breeds insecurity and feelings of lack and inadequacy. We are all climbing our own ladder looking across at everyone else and trying to make sure we keep up. This process is brutal and never ending and that’s the whole point. Capitalism needs growth, and continued growth can only come about from turning more and more of our human interactions and creativity into commodities.

I love that as humans we can share our creativity with each other and it feels a bit dirty to be describing it as consuming, because there are definitely ways to enjoy art and creativity in a much purer way, a way that actually connects us to each other and imparts the feeling and soul of the art that is being created. Unfortunately, I think art and creativity are more and more being squished and repackaged into ways that reduces them to being mere consumer products.

I don’t really know how to fix this. I personally want to move towards experience and connection in my life. I used to be incredibly social when I was drinking. I was always out, but always out my nut so it wasn’t that nourishing for my soul. Although I do think there was probably some internal comfort from just being in the company of people, even if I was wrecked. So that is something that I would like to work on going forward.

It’s strange to be typing this because looking at these photos, this year has actually been the year I have painted the most with other people. I am very fortunate to know a lot of really sound and incredibly creative people and I should be taking advantage of that a lot more.

So aye, this feels like a bit of a weird end of year review. But these are some of the thoughts I have been pondering this year. I really like this longer form way of writing. I love that I can include videos and podcasts that I have enjoyed from this year. I think this will be a much better way for me to post about my work and my ideas. Instagram was really getting me down. I think I will do another blog about that at some point.

Big ups if you have made it to the end of this blog. I really appreciate you taking the time to read about what I do and think about, don’t feel bad for consuming my shite. I actually think that newsletters and blogs, as well as long form podcasts are actually places where you can get that more nourishing experience of creativity. Basically trying to move away from the fast food style of consumption and move to a more thoughtful home cooked meal type vibe.

Have a belter of a new year whatever you get up to. It’s all downhill from here anyway so let’s enjoy it.

Much love.

Panda.

OhPandah

OhPandah 2021 - A Wee Review.

A wee visit to Rome.