I Almost Lost It

So I have been struggling with my work all semester, which I'm sure as you all know can be a a very frustrating time. It not only forces you into reflection of your practice, but generates a questioning of self. That process let me say, sucks. The last thing someone who depends on confidence in self to generate a body of work can do, is lose touch with what she should know best, herself. 

Artists depend on their life basically to aid in the ideas that we produce to make statements, to advocate context. Each body of work, photographs, paintings you see has more to it. Always. There is however the ones that generate work for 'arts sake' but then we're looking at macaroni spray painted gold and made into a self portrait.... what am I saying I'm sure someone could come up with some bullshit to even make that have significant contextual value. 

Back to my original point here... so it's basically really fucked up when you find yourself at a wall you can't seem to work through or around. When you produce images and don't really know why or what their value, its just shit. It can be really scary, sometimes force people to just.. give up. For me, I've done quite a wide variety of work. I don't want to have a particular 'style' that I'm known for. I feel personally that it's closing more doors for me both finically and 'artistically?' whatever. Anyways, I wouldn't consider myself a feminist for the very reason the actual label feminist carries a great deal of negative discourse, negativity in general and is a very abused word.. but a great deal of my works content is female. I explored a few aspects of how women can be misrepresented, conducted a cultural comparison study when I was in Israel, Turkey and Paris. I also have done personal exploration of work, through various levels in self portraiture. So in my 'wall' issue with producing work, I think what might of happened is that I reached a point in expressing and narration of my life in work.. where there wasn't anything I wanted to face. It wasn't parts of my life I wanted to share. To allow for people to be able to connect to or have an understanding. Because well, its my life and my experiences no one can understand that and see me the same way blah blah. I reached the tough reality of having to grow up essentially as an artist, and to start accepting and embracing mistakes. Not limiting my work with the perception of perfection in how others saw it. To understand not everyone is going to 'get' my shit right away. Having a pondering moment won't kill me or them. Everyone has their own baggage and therefore (I should've realized this from photo history long ago).. NO ONE will see my work the same way I SEE it. And thus, neither of them will view it the same way, or take away from it the same things. SO. I had a revaluation, a bit of a heart attack in questioning myself.. but now I'm just going to produce a bunch of work which I'm not saying anything about until its done.. 

This will though, definitely be a very big challenge for myself as a photographer and myself to complete this project. I'm worried but need to challenge myself on an entirely different level now. HARD BALL kids. Tennis balls are gone.