How does one reconcile making work in so many mediums?

This is a topic I’ve thought about a lot, about which I hope to come to a conclusion by writing about it more.

Being mixed-race, I learned early what it was like to be seen as uncategorizable.

Summarized in a few lines:

  • I had in-group access to both spaces, but was othered in both spaces.
  • The ambiguity of my appearance was not something I really thought about1, though it became clear that others did.
  • The unparseability of my identity by others contributed (among other things) to an internal uncertainty about my identity2}.

An incomplete list of examples:

  • Fewer people had encountered a mixed-race person when I was a child and teen in LA, so it was a weekly occurrence to be engaged on the bus by a stranger asking what race I was. I would answer earnestly and honestly. Their curiosity would be sated, and I would be free to return to the book I was reading.
  • At a family gathering (asian), my relatives would mention that they were envious of my eyelids or my lighter complexion.
  • At a family gathering (white), my relatives would remark that the food I brought was either exotic or gross.

I believe these early experiences were the basis for a more broad application of my self being “not a singular thing”.

Areas of in-between

(In chronological order of occurrence)

  • Race
  • Gender
  • Intellectual capacity (Gifted vs. Crazy)
  • Type of artist (2D illustration vs. Music vs. Sculpture vs. New Media vs. Costuming vs. Dance)
  • Professional interest (Scientific Research vs. Software Engineering)
  • Circus focus (Aerialist vs. Contortionist)
  • Class (Low-income childhood vs. Middle-class income adult)
  • Job prospects (Science/Technology vs. Art)

Different mediums

I feel proficient in a variety of mediums. When I’m deep in a project, I feel a lot of joy and engagement working. Later, I will feel inspired by some other medium, or a collaborator will have a need or proposal, and I will switch focus to that medium.

I see others go deep into their work and feel the pain and inadequacy of not being able to focus on one of my interests in order to artistically develop it to its full potential.

It’s only recently, after incubating a myriad of disparate skills for several years, that many of them are reaching the level of becoming performable or exhibitable, albeit longer than it would have taken if I had just focused on one thing.

This summer, someone told me that she could see the common thread of my expression across my dance and my illustration and my sculpture and my costuming and my community mentoring. It felt so validating to be seen like that, and to have hope that there might be a kind of as-yet-discovered way to display or perform the totality of my work for people, or that it might be alright to stay confidently in this not-easily-categorizable space.

Am I overthinking it?

Maybe everyone feels this way and has these dilemmas, but they are simply more disciplined about picking a single thing because they realize it’s the best way?

Or maybe they have a fairly static or simple idea of their identities (despite these actually being as complex as mine) and that framework allows them to not be mired in this question?

Should I simply suck it up and pick one thing?

I don’t have an answer right now. I think making this site was a step in the right direction (something I couldn’t have done with the intense self-loathing that characterized my internal life prior to 2022), because it really allows me to see and organize things more clearly.

As I continue to make work and intentionally think about this question, I hope an answer reveals itself.

What are my goals, even

I: I enjoy making work. I have independently done this since I was ~8 years old; it’s the way that I seek joy or self-regulate and the way that I socialize with my others.

II: Recognized as an artist in more than one of these mediums, and to be part of the communities that inspire me (both to improve myself by learning from others and teach others; the latter in particular feels like something that has happened more lately, as I’ve more frequently found myself in a mentoring role within my community).

III: Transitioning to full-time artistic work as a profession.

  1. I still sometimes forget what I look like / don’t realize how people are perceiving me in a space until it is pointed out to me (see also: being a girl at the 12-hour MtG tournament) ↩︎

  2. My skills, likes, dislikes, and feelings have always felt uncomfortably mutable (a topic for a different time) ↩︎