HIGH APPETITE

DARIANA ©

Is it toxic to have so many drafts? Are we ever gonna use them? I have 10 000 pics and try-ons on my laptop. Each time I see a cluster of images, vectors or whatever, I can't help but think: “Am I ever gonna use this again?”.

Maybe you should change your perspective about the utility of a draft. So many things make sense only if you scrap, write or gather them somewhere. For me it’s very useful to have snippets of the chaos before creating something. They can make you feel something.

Do we really use the notes on our phones as drafts?: I feel this is a thing that everyone does. I am the kind of person that has 10 000 tabs of notes but using only 2 of them. It could be a list of items in my luggage, together with a brilliant idea & the phone number of an electrician person chilling together.

I have my own system. I like the idea of keeping ideas as a cluster or as individual pieces and them, as a whole, can form an archived piece about me, frozen in time. I'm sure that there are people out there that have "useless" notes/drafts in their phones from 10-15 years.

(Don't let me down now y'all)

I rarely use my phone mostly because I hate it. When I write stuff in notes, I feel disclosed. For me drafts are written words only. I like the feeling of my hand writing the ideas coming from my head. I associate buttons and typing with doomscrolling. It’s not productive for me to be on my phone to think about things.

You said that you are starting a project by creating a list. When you start your project, do you have a graphic draft? Just like layers?

Depending on what I’m working on or for who I’m working (myself or another person). The style is very important, it’s something formal, fun, informal like a poster, I usually have the visual side, the drawings, and a little text. I usually make a list of what I’m comprehending from their proposal. I work in a ludic way, I’m not technical. Last year I mostly worked with other people in a journalistic area and I was reading the drafts and the text that I worked on and also translating visually what they needed me to do for their investigations and articles. I read them and I wrote the whole thing down to comprehend in a more sensitive way because that type of text was usually discussing something raw and informational or graphic.

I’m very difficult with myself when I have to process graphic/explicit words, so I have to rewrite and process in my own way.

I make my drafts to be understood only by me.

Is it beneficial for creatives to be in a forever rush?: We were taught to create something long lasting, but in this climate of everything moving so fast I do not blame myself for jumping from one idea to another. I see this in the way I work. I’m able to jump from one direction to another and it doesn't consume/bore me like being static does. Regardless, I can't help but wonder: What if I would just stick to one thing at the time? What would the outcome look like then?

You need to experience the slow peace side. I think it’s necessary to experience the chaotic version of having multiple ideas and juggling between them. Definitely, it’s not sustainable. It’s a permanent fight of where to put more energy into.

Do you have a project that seems to never have an end? That it’s just a race of how many drafts can we produce?

Right now I don’t have a specific one, maybe I have something in the past that I cannot recall. I snapped out of taking too long to act. I end things very quickly, but I take my time to plan things.

Hiii! It's such a pleasure to have you here today, thank you for accepting my invitation.

Heyyyy! It is so great hearing you and also seeing you!

The idea of the draft, how do we deal with them: It’s a cluster of images, ideas, everything. Are we hunters or gatherers when it comes to our ideas?

For me drafts are less visual and more writing. I identify with drafts more like in a list making type of activity. I have different notebooks for different ways of manifesting art. They are mostly notebooks and lists and words, they look so different. I love drafts because when you are working with different ideas/mediums, it’s very important to quickly catch a glimpse of how your mind works with drafts. You shouldn’t buy a notebook and think that you need to follow a rule. Even making a list is personal and different for every person.

I agree, I have a very toxic relationship with notebooks. I cannot keep one. I love looking at them, but I see it as a perfect thing that you can open it when you have a certain idea and you need to write it with a certain pen. I’m very biblical about my ideas, but the way I express them is very chaotic. I always use post-its. If post-its would become extinct or would be destroyed forever, I would be dead. I love them so much, they are my medium. For lists, yes, I use them (notebooks). But post-its, I have a bunch everywhere, in my bathroom, on the fridge, on the door.

I’m completely opposite. I don’t like things on my walls. I don’t like to see the plans around me.

DaRIANA ©

S02 "Are we hunters or gatherers?"

what happens to the drafts that are stuck in the purgatory; never to see the light

@darimmica

@high.appetite.sessions

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thank you

So, when I created High Appetite I had a lot of drafts, even moving one letter was a draft, because my process wasn’t linear. I had maybe 2h/day to work on this project. Every day I had a different perspective. One day I was positive, then the next day, I was extra destroyed. I was taking everything apart and building it differently the next day. I just created so many drafts and ideas and after 5 months, I needed to stop somewhere. It wasn't beneficial. I stopped where I’m right now. Going through the drafts, I could see a clear course of that period of my life there. From the beginning I was hungry, trying everything at the same time, I was chaotic and then, I was trying to desperately temper it. Those drafts made me realise that sometimes you need to stop doing so much unnecessary sh*t. Sometimes, it is just garbage and clutter and I don’t wanna pollute the space too much.

Maybe my experience in animating can be seen as such. It's a very sensitive topic because I’ve always wanted to approach it with more time and involvement. It is the only medium for which I think that I need to drop everything to fully focus on. I want to enjoy the animation. I think I don’t necessarily have a project, but a medium that I’m postponing. Recently I’ve switched to tattooing, to hand-poking technique, and the trance with animating is kind of similar because for both I layer the drawings. In animation I work with the frame by frame practice. In tattooing you have a different type of responsibility because you work on human skin, it cannot be undone. It is very similar and it’s a step for me to approach the animation process with more patience.

Through tattoos, you are giving the world the art you are creating by exposing it on a walking canvas and it’s a cool way to spread your practice around (maybe the coolest). If you are tattooing your own work, you do not have to compromise nothing of yourself.

The people have the desire and trust of “I want you on my skin”.

Would you like to say something in the end?

It kind of puts very smoothly and quickly into perspective for me the fact that I’ve been detaching myself from being overlapped with drafting. What you wish for yourself, is happening for me now. I’ve changed my medium lately. It’s a good break, but drafts are here to stay. Even if you do not have paper or your phone, laptop, pixels whatever around you. You need to enjoy your brain.

DARIANA ©

Dariana is a person from Romania who is very conflicted by aesthetics and very attached to being a beginner. She is currently based in Bucharest, and her practice revolves around drawing. Recently, she merged from illustration to handpoking drawings on skin. Due to her predisposition to ocular migraines, she loves to take her time with a tool before switching. Loves patience.

Her system orbits around experimental and whimsical drawings. She is very intentional with her practice, as she manages to bind her affinity for humble traditional drawing instruments with digital tools at hand in her pieces.

I like to keep them somewhere I have to spread the pages. I prefer to make an action in order to “discover” them, I don’t like them to be in plain sight. Probably that makes me a hunter and you are more like a gatherer.

transcript by daria iusan

6 MINUTE READ

Experimental spiralling session on the subject of idea archiving & modern-day brain-frying methods:

on-dial w/ Dariana