Stopping, Breaking, and Moving

Over the Christmas Break I purposed to not make any art. I visited my family in California and I asked them not to talk to me about art or school. I wanted to spend my break enjoying my family and friends and not become worried about all the looming deadlines coming up. Maybe I need to learn some skills in time management or some techniques for relieving anxiety. Maybe I need to realize that my job, my art, is okay to talk about and that it doesn't need to stress me out...but I'm not there yet...I'm sure my parents would have loved to know what I have been up to but I really needed time for my brain to settle down and I needed to rethink what I was doing and why.

When I got back home and started up school again I began thinking about a few things:
-I am under no obligation to like art, attend art events, or talk about art with anyone if I don't want to. Here when I say "art" I think I'm talking about the scene of art and the systems in place to support and cultivate that scene.
-Why should I make art just to make it? If I have something important I think I need to do, then I can do it. If not, why bother? Explorations can be included, and I think it's good to explore.
-Let's get priorities straight: Family and Friends are first. Then a few other things. Art is way down the list.

When I got back from school I dropped a few different things that may have been keeping me from doing things that I feel I need to be doing. These may have been because of time constraints and/or from my increasingly evolving ideas about productivity; I don't need to pile things into my schedule just so that I have things that fill my time. Now I have more time to rethink what I'm doing and really make sure that I'm satisfied with the choices I've made.

On another note, I've been reading through an online summit about the paradoxes of slackerdom and I would recommend it for all you interested in what it means to enjoy life, doing what you think you need to do, and the differences between leisure, procrastination, sloth, and slacking off. Not sure exactly what to make of it all at this point but it's fun to read.