Fail again. Fail better

Let me explain why I haven't been posting my art recently. It was because...I failed. Again and again,  I failed.

I failed so many times I think I am allowed to feel defeated. Then my friend said to me:

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

-Samuel Beckett

I wonder why he can never run out of good quotes.


I failed not because I couldn't draw accurately. Instead I was non-selectively accurate, making my drawing extremely trivial and vulgar. I knew something was wrong but I couldn't find the missing link.

I thought it was my very naive lines. I tried to copy my teacher's drawings it didn't work. I tried to copy the Italian masters it didn't work. I hit a dead end. So today, I decided to have a little chat with my model - a plaster cast.

I looked at her closely, noticing she was strikingly beautiful. Slightly plump by modern standard, but nonetheless extremely elegant and feminine. I asked her why was she so elegant. She looked down, and ever so slightly she smiled. It was a very dreamy smile, as if my question had just woke her up from a beautiful dream.

Was she sleepy? No. Sleepy was not the right word. She was calm. Very relaxed. Very comfortable. She was surrounded by a magical aura.

So then I got back to my seat and started to draw as she continued to give me that dreamy look. Eventually, my teacher signalled a bare pass.

I believe I failed because I didn't understand what I was drawing. I drew the correct shape but the soul slipped right through my hands.

And it seems my effort on the lines was not completely wasted. Out of nowhere I started to create my very own dancing lines... Ok may be they are not dancing yet. They are more like just tapping the feet (off the beat).



But at least, I fail better.

Hey! Buddies!!

Proust and the Proust questionnaire

Even my dearest friend who studied literature thinks Proust's text can be quite painful to swallow, it might be hard to imagine someone who was trained to be an engineer loves Proust. Yes I do. But his work is not meant to be swallowed. It has to be chewed, carefully, thoughtfully, until it resonates with your mind, perfectly aligns with your feelings, and you will understand why he is one of the most sophisticated writers in human history.

Still in his teens, his friend asked him to answer a series of questions about life, feelings and aspirations. These questions were very difficult to answer even for adults. But our dear Proust, not surprisingly, nailed it. If you are interested to know Proust's answers, read here. Since he was so famous, the questionnaire was then named after him.

Here is my take. I had fun thinking through each of these questions. I strongly recommend you to try them too! Enjoy! :)


1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?

I don't think perfect happiness really exists. But the illusion of perfect happiness can exist retrospectively in a form of consciously or unconsciously manipulated memory. And people are happy only when they have the desire to be happy.

2. What is your most marked characteristic?

Contradiction: Simple and complicated. Artsy and scientific. Passionate and cold. Timid and adventurous. Everything comes in pairs.

3. What is your greatest fear?

Not being loved.

4. Which historical figure do you most identify with?

I can only think of Yves Saint Laurent.

5. Which living person do you most admire?

I thought there would be many. But in the end I can only think of my mom.

6. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

I can't force myself to do the things I don't like or stop doing the things I like.

7. What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Dishonesty.

8. What is your greatest extravagance?

To have an unlimited amount of time to do only the things I love.

9. What is your current state of mind?

Slightly upset because Q8 seems to be unachievable.

10. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Courage. I consider it a necessity instead of a virtue.

11. On what occasion do you lie?

Either to someone so important that I can't afford to upset, but not important enough to sacrifice my happiness. Or to others who are too unimportant to feel guilty.

12. What do you most dislike about your appearance?

It depends. Sometimes nothing. Sometimes everything.

13.  Which living person do you most despise?

Those who pretend they like you more than they really do, to get the attention more than they really deserve.

14. What is the quality you most like in a man?

Elegance.

15. What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Elegance, too.

16. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

"I don't care!"

17. What or who is your greatest love of your life?

Myself and this is very sad.

18. Which talent would you most like to have?

To love everything I think I love truly, deeply, madly.

19. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

To live my childhood again with my current mentality.

20. What do you consider as your greatest achievement?

I make a few people happy simply because I exist.

21. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

Myself as a man but with the memory of being a woman.

22. Where would you like to live?

Paris. Anywhere with someone loves me I love.

23. What is your most treasured possession?

My boundless curiosity.

24. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Living under the fear of a miserable future.
Wake up from a dream where you see the one you love who is lost forever in real life.

25. What is your favourite occupation?

To lose track of time in art of all forms. Writings, paintings, music, nature, love.

26. What do you most value in your friends?

Communication through the brain to share the thoughts and feelings. Not through non-sense or emoji.

27. Who are your favourite writers?

Oscar Wilde. Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Milan Kundera. And the painters who put their creative mind into words, most notably Vincent Van Gogh.

28. Who is your hero of fiction.

If life is considered a work of fiction, then Yves Saint Laurent.

29. Who is your favourite artist?

Renaissance artists: Michelangelo, Raphael. Portrait painters: Velasquez, Rembrandt. Tortured masters: Goya, Van Gogh

30. Who is your favourite musician?

Chopin.

31. Who are your heroes in real life?

My future husband.

32. What is it that you most dislike?

Losing control of my time for someone/something that doesn't worth my time.

33. What is your greatest regret?

I have lost the feeling of being a child as I grow up.

34. How would you like to die?

Right after my own funeral. So that I know how I would be remembered.

35. What is your motto?

"Life is too important to be taken seriously"  - Oscar Wilde

Why I stopped drawing photo

Read carefully haha. I am not saying I stopped drawing. I stopped drawing photos.

I think I mentioned my teachers hate people drawing photos, or drawings that look like photos. I can finally understand why.

You can never develop yourself into an artist if all you want is to make drawings that look like photos. Ever.

There are masters who can draw based on photos too, I know. But like I said, they are masters, and masters already have the personality that can shine through their work. So they can work on the images skillfully without losing themselves. For beginners, it's a nightmare to do so. Let me tell you why.

Type "realistic drawing" on Google and search for images.

Right. These are all drawings. Amazing?

Can you tell whether they are photos or drawings? No. Can you tell they were all made by different artists? No. Do you find anything special about these drawings? No. So what's the point of making them? No, not at all.

You can totally understand art differently. But to me art is something that communicates directly to my heart, not my brain. Just like listening to a great piece of classical music you let it guide your emotions until it hits a certain note, so perfectly, you cry. That's the tear of joy. This is something one cannot explain. But at that brief moment, you understand the composer, you know his feelings, so distinctively that it can't be mistaken to be someone else's. 

To learn art, you learn to express yourself through your lines. Consciously or unconsciously you're giving a piece of yourself in whatever thing you produce. Drawings that look like photos in other words hide all the uniqueness of the artist. Yes it impresses the general public but the work is empty. And the emptiness kills art.   

So what makes a great drawing? It can never be wrong to go back to the Italian masters. 

Leonardo Da Vinci

Michelangelo 

Raphael

These are all very simple sketches. But they are more than enough to show you the sophistication of Leonardo, the power of Michelangelo, and the sensibility of Raphael.

I also happened to find a great resource from the British Museum, showing 60 years of drawings by Michelangelo. Enjoy! :) [ Click here ] 

I hope I can buy the catalog of this exhibition but it seems it's all sold out :-<

Letter from an unknown wo(man)

No I am not in love. Not yet. But a pleasant surprise allowed me to gain a glimpse of it, through the keyhole of the door of love, which is, however, still firmly shut.

I don't know how this dear friend of mine can always find the right thing for me at the right time. He recommended me to read a book called "Letter from an unknown woman" by Stefan Zweig written in 1922 (!) [ This is the book I got ]. It was about a desperate woman who finally found the courage to write a letter to a man whom she loved obsessively right before she took her last breath. She spent her entire life spinning around the man who couldn't even recognize her. A very sad story. You can feel her flaming love through the words, so powerful that it can almost burn you.

I see a little bit of myself in the man, a little bit of myself in the woman. I am spoiled. Spoiled rotten by my parents and a special friend who will be eager to read this post the moment I press "Publish". They are the people who are willing to hear what I am going to say, who care to know what I think of them, but will nevertheless love me all the same.

I feel blessed to be spoiled. But it's a happy sad thing. I am so eager to know what does it feel like to love someone unconditionally. I need a burning passion, not only towards art, towards adventures, but also towards other people, till then my life is complete.

May be I still haven't met the right person, or I still haven't learned how to let my emotions flow. But no I am not cold-hearted. I am sensitive. I am delicate. I know it's all inside me. All I need is a key, or someone who's kind enough to answer the door.

Knock, Knock. Please, let me in.