Hello and welcome to my blog!
I’m Emiko or Emi, I use they/them pronouns, and I’m an artist.
My intention with this blog is to share my works in progress: all the unfinished and possibly never-to-be-finished paintings, knits, embroideries, video projects, writings, and so on, which have historically been a source of shame and self-admonishment. I want to celebrate my whole creative process in all its messiness and complexity.
A little backstory: I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2020, and I’ve spent the past couple of years reflecting and re-evaluating my beliefs around creative productivity, capitalism, and my own self-worth. I’ve always struggled to complete things, to stick with one project and see it through til the end, and as a result, I have an endless supply of works in progress cluttering up my physical and mental space. Interests and hyperfixations come and go, leaving me with a sense that I “never accomplish anything.”
I want a space where I can share and celebrate these works in progress.
I want to reframe my WIP’s as the goal of my creative life, rather than being a consolation prize, or a mark of my failure to commit.
I want to let go of the perfectionism that often paralyzes me and stops me from trying a new idea before I’ve even begun.
I want to reclaim the creative freedom I had as a kid, back before I conditioned myself to turn every creative idea into a money-making, merch-selling side gig.
To be honest, I’m feeling anxious just at the prospect of making this blog. My brain is warning me, “Don’t bother, you’ll lose interest and end up quitting it within a couple of weeks.”
Maybe that will happen, maybe it won’t. But I’m tired of letting that voice tell me what I can and can’t do.
My (extremely tentative; see: everything above) plan for this blog is to share pictures and commentary of my creative process. I want my website to function as a home base for the majority of my projects, so that I can look back and go, damn, I made a lot of stuff, that’s pretty cool. I’d like to make some timelapse or tutorial videos as well, maybe make some knitting or crochet patterns. I might also use this space to just talk about life stuff, mental health, queer identity, whatever I feel like.
I hope this blog will allow me to connect with folks that have similar interests, too. If you’re stopping by, feel free to say hi and tell me where to find your work!
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next post, unless I ditch this blog project immediately. We’ll just have to wait and see.