Creative Moves
New things are coming in 2020. I’m expanding Brittanyography into sharing my creative side: creating time-lapse videos, behind the scenes blogs, and selling original pieces and prints. I’m going into this with the mindset of a student: pulling inspiration from the late John Cage.
When people ask me what I do, I’m going to reply: photographer, artist, and content creator. That’s who I am and what I do.
The Inspiration:
John Cage
John Cage was an American composer, music theorist, artist, and philosopher. He was a man ahead of his time. His out of the box thinking lead to the development of modern dance with long-time romantic partner, Merce Cunningham. Click here to learn more about John.
Well, John, I’d call you a philosopher with content like the following:
RULE 1: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.
RULE 2: General duties of a student pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
RULE 3: General duties of a teacher pull everything out of your students.
RULE 4: Consider everything an experiment.
RULE 5: Be self-disciplined: this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
RULE 6: Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail, there's only make.
RULE 7: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It's the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
RULE 8: Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.
RULE 9: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.
RULE 10: We're breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.
HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything it might come in handy later.
This guy was a modern freak and genius. Everything he did was outside the lines. This video, for example titled “Water Walk” was performed in January 1960 on the hit TV show I’ve Got A Secret.
After watching the video, you’ve got to wonder if this guy is all there or next level. At the time, he was controversial- doing absurd things like requesting a group of talented musicians to not play for an entire track.
Yeah, I said that right.
John released a track of silence. It’s a recording of talented artists just sitting in silence. The track, titled 4:33 was banned from many radios, which you can see Cage knocking over in the “Water Walk” presentation.
I’m not even scratching the surface of Cage’s creative paths.
Real-Life Application:
My takeaway so far is that it’s okay to have many different creative endeavors. Just because I do a variety of things, does not mean I can’t master those things. Ever heard of the phrase “jack of all trades, master of none?” I’m not Jack- I’m the f*ing queen.
What I am doing is interesting to me. It might be interesting to you.
Well, I’ve decided to share those other things on my Brittanyography platform. From now on, you will be receiving all sorts of creative content from me: Sewing and tailoring, painting, drawing, behind the scenes, philosophical or religious blog posts, maybe vlogs and monthly art updates. I’m already doing all these things, I just haven’t been sharing them with you.
But I’ve been preparing to share. Here’s how I’ve been prepping:
Recording behind the scenes of creative projects
Brainstorming subjects for prints
Refreshing my product photography skills
Becoming comfortable in front of the camera
Teaching others what I know
I’ve been rolling this around since the renaming of my photography business in 2017. I wanted the tagline to be “Photography & Creative” for a reason!
I’m inspired.
I have ideas.
Let’s see where we go with this.
I’ve already been sharing tidbits here and there on my art Instagram @brittanysartisty. I’m still working on the name- and will probably end up changing it. Right now my top pick is @brittanyquick since my last name means fast in German.
Do you have any suggestions? Leave it in the comments down below!
A special thanks to Olivia for my cover image for this blog post. You inspire me <3
This doesn’t mean I’m slowing down with photography! Right now is the tail end of the 2020 booking season for weddings. Reach out to me at photo@brittanyography.com for more info.