Portfolio Pressure + Litho Printmaking Results, 10/11/2025
October 11th, 2025
I’ve been feeling really disconnected from my practice over the last couple of weeks and I can’t really place why. Maybe I’ve been taking too much time off. The juices just don’t feel like they’re flowing right now like they usually do. Plus it’s a gray, rainy weekend, and I’ve been out drinking too much lately. That surely doesn’t help. Wrong kind of juice!!
But now that I’m really thinking about it, I think overwhelmingly this distance I’m feeling from my practice has to do with the cycle of self-consciousness I always fall into. Last weekend we were in Amherst, Massachussetts checking out the MFA program at UMass. A very kind Prof. Susan Jahoda took me and another prospective applicant on a tour and told us all about how the program works. The teaching-centered structure of the program, ample interdisciplinary facilities, and experimental faculty there were all amazing. I mean, almost too amazing. I left the tour feeling oddly uneasy. I was excited by the possibility, but couldn’t shake a looming feeling of imminent failure or rejection at the same time, because I know that only 6 applicants are accepted for each cycle.
I have a habit of putting all my eggs in one basket, and I can already feel myself doing it in this scenario too. But how do I stop? I attended an online info session for a different school, Tulane, hoping I’d feel just as excited by the program but I wasn’t at all. I’m just laser focused on this one opportunity. And that laser focus on this one opportunity is also manifesting as a hyper-critical perspective on the work I’m doing now leading up to the application. I want it to be perfect, so that I can be accepted for certain. But no matter how perfect I think the work is, there’s never going to be a guarantee. It’s so terrifying. On the other hand, there are still 6 spots in the program. One of them could be mine…. If my application is PERFECT!!! So you can see this kind of cycle my mind is running around in nonstop ever since I left the campus last Wednesday. I know that all I can do is submit my application and hope for the best— the work will continue either way. But I always have a hard time accepting uncertainty like that.
Anyways, despite the frustrating roller coaster of thoughts between imminent constant failure or fabulous ascendant success, I’ve gotten a little bit of work done this week. Most excitingly, I had my first lithographs printed at the Art Student’s League. Here they are:
I’m really excited by the way they turned out. I absolutely love that unique texture that lithographs have on the surface. It looks almost like graphite but a lot less smudgy. And more fixed, somehow– more finished than a graphite drawing might be. This time I only got to watch the master printmaker, Tomomi Ono, run the printing press, but next time I’ll get to participate a little bit more in the process. I have to learn how to use the press under Tomomi’s supervision for my first 6 stones, then, hopefully, I’ll know how to learn the press myself. At that point I can make as many prints as I like. So, on to the next one. It’s going to be a refreshed version of one of my old Kermit postcards– the one based on “To the Lighthouse”. I absolutely love drawing on the litho stone.
Besides that, I did a little bit of animation and a little planning for a show my studiomate + pal Diana and I are planning to put on in November. It’s called “Construction Zone” and is going to be a showcase for artists working in narrative mediums like animation, film, fiction, and comics to share their in progress work. I’m excited for the show but also a little bit overwhelmed. I hate to say it but I’m not very good at collaborating, so planning jointly is difficult. I just need to stop trying to control everything myself and let my friend, who I trust, take control of things too. I also need to stop worrying about controlling the audience’s experience. It’ll just be what it is. It’s experimental… Right?
Anyway, all that just to give you (you, out there, whoever you may be…) some context for this little GIF I made:
It only took me about four hours so it’s kind of rough. I’m torn between whether I want to redo it or not. I think it will serve its purpose, even if it isn’t an amazing “portfolio piece”... You see? Now everything I make has this level of pressure on it, because I want to make work for the “portfolio.” UGH! I’ll just be happy that I made anything at all. Besides, it’s a cute little image. It works for the show.
I’ll stop spiralling now, and just wrap this thing up. I want to go buy some groceries at Trader Joe’s, then we are meeting Sam’s parents at the Bohemian Beer Hall in Astoria for some live music and beer. More drinking? Perhaps I will abstain.
Til next time,
Finn
