NEU TOKYO: On Creativity
Marianna
How would you describe your creative process?
It is a lot of gathering of different ideas, images, sounds - and then letting that marinate for a minute in my head. I look at materials - do I want to do something purely digital or purely analog or a mixture of both. Usually, I try to take an idea and do it to death… until I have nothing left to say, until it bores the hell out of me, sometimes I will take it even further just to be sure I am done.
Marianna
What creative projects are you most proud of?
Aaron
The project that I am most proud of is my art postcard project. The project was influenced by the works of On Kawara and Ray Johnson with mail-art.
I have tried to do this many times and to varying degrees of success. Even this time - it wasn't exactly what I wanted- honestly I am not even sure what that was. But it was really cool to connect with people.
This recent iteration I think worked only because of COVID-19. People were looking for connection, social media was not providing that (and can’t really). So what I did was offer a free postcard, 5x7 inches, with my collage on one side, and a poem on the other. It was free. It was just so that people could get something in the mail other than a bill, junk advertising, or nothing. A lot of people got it - some didn’t - and didn’t trust me with their address. Some people got it but were so wrapped up with their lives they never told me they received it, some people notified me right away, some people kept asking me when theirs was gonna come. What I learned was the power of art. How it touched a lot of people. How I was able to use a tool (Instagram) to make a connection with people. I think that it was rad that an idea in my head, became a piece of art, put on a postcard with another artist's poem, and then is sent across the country or half-way around the world. Someone gets it and it touches them somehow.
Marianna
Do you have a routine for entering into a creative headspace?
Aaron
I like to clean my workspace. I have never been able to do work from a messy workspace. There are too many thoughts going through my head, and having a messy workspace does not allow for good work. It doesn’t have to be immaculate but things need to be in order. I do this because it allows me to go through what tools I might need to create, and it also allows me to think about what I might want to make. I don't have a studio, so I make my work in my apartment. The collages that I create are both digital and analog, so sometimes I make work at my dining room table and sometimes I make collages on my iPad sitting in my bed. So sometimes I am cleaning the kitchen/dining room one time, and other times my bedroom.
If I have already cleaned my apartment on a day that I wasn't doing artwork - then I enter my creative space by making some tea, turning on some music - and then sitting down to do some work. While the kettle is boiling I arrange some of my materials, maybe go to my computer and look at some inspirational/mood board stuff I saved on Pinterest, DesignInspiration, or Instagram. There are days where I don’t create, and I just research art, poems, movies, music whatever on the internet. I usually bookmark them or create a mood board for later.
Marianna
Do you have habits you've built for yourself to foster creativity?
Aaron
Cook. Workout. Read. Rest. Be Lazy and do nothing. Clean. Watch mindless television on the internet.
The creativity for me comes with NOT having to force myself to do the art thing. I think you need to definitely practice your craft - there is just no way to get better. There are times when you do need to work through a hard idea - that you want to bring to life in your art. But I don't force it.
I do those things I listed out - in random order - and they always lead me back to art. While doing one of those tasks, and the idea will come up during or after. Sometimes I have too many ideas and they get jumbled up. So maybe a good ass-kicking workout, a healthy meal, and a stupid little tv show are what I need. Then the next day I wake up, a little sore, well-rested, and clear-headed - BOOM - I am ready to make something. It doesn’t always happen like this - but its what I can remember right now while I am typing these answers.
Marianna
Where do you think ideas come from?
Aaron
God. Not in a religious sense - but there is something greater than our singular being. Maybe it is the voice of my ancestors - those that lived and died as slaves working in a cotton field or a sugar cane plantation. Maybe it goes further back -who knows. I am certainly not the originator of my ideas.
Marianna
What does creativity mean to you?
Aaron
I think it means being free to express yourself without limitations.
Marianna
When do your best ideas hit you?
Aaron
When I am not looking for them. Usually, I am not thinking about them at all. I am just present in the moment - and not really thinking about what I should make or what I have made, what I should be, or what I have been.
Marianna
So many creatives are pivoting and finding ways to adjust their creative process during the quarantine. How have you been channeling your creativity during this time?
Aaron
This pandemic has not really changed anything in my creative process. I don't really make money from my art - so I am dependent on it to provide financial stability for me. If anything this pandemic has increased my followership on Instagram and also my visibility.
Since people are stuck at home, and then with worldwide protests - I think my black centric artwork struck a chord with people at the right time.
I had prior to COVID-19, the protests for BLM, and against police brutality, started to change my work. I used to use fashion magazines as the primary source of my collages, and as my skill in collage increased I started to be aware of the content of what I was producing. I didn't like it. I didn't see me in my work - by "me" I mean my blackness. The countless magazines I used - would always give white models 5 -10-page features, large images, bold spreads, and then BIPOC models would get small little features or be regulated to the background. I was pissed at myself - because I was just using white models - and I also noticed that when I would use black models in my work it would get fewer "views and likes" on Instagram. Then it was time to do some research, and find black artists doing collage, assemblage, painting -anything of the like of what interested me.
I was introduced to Kerry James Marshall, Romare Bearden, Mcikalene Thomas, Lorna Simpson, Nina Chanel Abney, Mark Bradford, Charles White, Jacob Lawrence. The list goes on and on. The point being I realized there was another way - and I had to find it for myself. COVID-19 hits - I had planned on going on a trip to Berlin for 1 month. See some old friends in England and Germany, do some art, wander around. I am glad I didn’t go - I really didn’t have the money - and I was just running away from being here in the US. So stuck here - I had nothing but these new-fangled ideas of what type of artist I now wanted to be, what type of art I now wanted to make, and a lot of f*cking time on my hands.
Marianna
Art and creativity reflect the current culture. How an artist wields the power to tell stories can be an effective act of rebellion. Discover anything new about yourself or your process?
Aaron
I guess the answer to this question is a continuation of the previous one. My art is my protest. I am African-American and Puerto Rican. Both sides of my lineage are touched by slavery, systematic racism, and oppression. At 42 I would like to hope that things are going to change, but I am not optimistic, there is too much money and power that needs to change hands and that will not happen without a fight.
I don't think my artwork is revolutionary, fresh, or new - I think it's a riff off an old tune that has been sung since time and memorial. But it still needs to be said in my own way and others. Sh*t has to change - and the change has to start with me.
Marianna
What unexpected turns did your life take to lead you to become who you are today?
Aaron
The short story? Getting married. Leaving the military. Moving to my wife's birth country to live and work. Getting divorced. Overstaying my visa and being kicked out of that country. Not being able to find a job to save my life in the United States. Moving in to live with a parent. Trying a new career in your mid-30s. Failing at that career. Random bouts of depression and alcohol abuse. Still can't find a job. Still living with a parent.
The 30s fly by and now you are 40. Find a job (working for the aforementioned parent) - and still living with that parent. If you were to ask me at 28 as an officer in the Navy, married, living, and working in a foreign country, those events would unfold in rapid succession in the following years!? I would have laughed in your face. And yet these things happened.
It's not the worst story in the world, I know there are a ton worse. Yet in between those times of heartache, of failure, of substance abuse - I was slowly making collages.
Probably because it was the closet thing to photography at the time. Something I loved to do prior to things changing. I just couldn't bring myself to take a photo because it reminded me of things that no longer existed. I cannot tell you what drove me to collage, maybe it was something from Andy Warhol, or maybe an article about Peter Beard's journal, I honestly cannot remember. Being creative, making art, helped me - it gave me focus on something other than the pain and heartache.
Odd. Something that saved me and I don't remember how.
Marianna
What sources of inspiration do you use to foster creativity in your work?
Aaron
Inspiration is everywhere. it's a cheesy line - but I really do believe it. I don't think that everything is inspiring.
Right now I am reading poetry from Langston Hughes, a book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Half of a Yellow Sun). I work out only using kettlebells and a jump rope - I am far from my goal weight, strength, or physique but working out, kicking my own ass, channels that youthful drive I had prior to getting into the military.
Plus it's great to challenge the physical self because it ties into the spiritual self.
For music inspiration, I go to Bandcamp Weekly or listen to some 90s hip-hop, post-punk, Detroit house, soulful house music. Anything with a beat that makes me feel good.
It's summer so as long as the sun is out I feel good.
Food inspires me - something as simple as watermelon juice, with a shot of lime juice, a dash of sea salt, over ice! Really just digging simple stuff.
Marianna
How do you make sense of chaos in your life?
Aaron
I look back at a period of my life from 2012 until now. It was just one traumatic event after another. What sucks was that I didn’t handle it well. I had the tools - and I had been trained to learn how to deal with chaos. But somehow I didn’t do the things that would have helped me.
I did the easy thing - which was succumb to it.
Chaos happens. I think accepting that things are out of control is one big step. But the next step (really its a step before the chaos even starts) is to execute a simple plan. The things that could have gotten me free from the bullshit (chaos) are the things I am doing NOW. The thing I know I can do well - and that I enjoyed. Cooking, Working Out, Hard Physical Labor, Meaningful Work. What I tried to do was replace what was swept away with the debris that remained. It's magical thinking and foolish - but people do it all the time. I did. It was only till I centered myself and said "Hey we are still alive - we ain’t dead yet!" that I realized to myself I have all the tools I need. Start slow and rebuild something new. I don’t know if that makes sense or not. It took a long time for me - too long. I am still paying for that. But the good thing is that I am making progress.
Marianna
Why do you think people get stuck on problems?
Aaron
Depends on the problem. If it's art -for me it's just me trying to force something that's not there. Or worrying about failing, instead of understanding that failing is the good part and part of discovery. Nostalgia, wanting things the way they were. Looking back instead of being present in the now. That is really hard, mindfulness, and gratitude. I continually have to check myself about that.
Marianna
What advice would you offer those struggling with creative blocks?
Aaron
UGh. FAIL. FAIL. FAIL. FAIL.
Make a ton of sh*t. That's what I did.
CREATE LIMITATIONS. I used to go to coffee shops, bring only a magazine, two glue sticks, scissors, and 4 substrates for glue collages on top. I gave myself a time limit, a color limit (only black and white, or only blue colors) for images, and went to work. The first collage was almost always not the best, but the next three were killer. I did the same with photography. Shoot only from the perspective of a child, only use with a fixed focal length, shoot only one roll of film.
Limitations are great - because you think work cannot be made if you don't have anything. Then you realize, hopefully, that all you need is access that other part of your brain that says "f*ck yeah when can do this"! When all else fails STOP! Where's the fire? Go do something else in your life. Call a friend you have talked to in a while. Read a book. Go see a movie alone. Walk through the park. Enjoy your life! Seriously. Life is so short.
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About NEU TOKYO:
New York-based artist Aaron Marin creates collage-based artwork under the moniker, NEU TOKYO, a nod to his 6 years spent living and working in Japan.
He has always been drawn to the construction of racialized bodies and the language linked to identity and representation. Juxtaposing print ads, textured media, layered words, and pictures, reconstructing known signs into new forms—turning " inside out" the prescribed ideas about beauty, power, and intelligence.
Inspired by black artists who “flip the script”; Kerry James Marshall, Deborah Roberts, Glenn Ligon, Romare Bearden, Kara Walker, and Theaster Gates - Aaron's work brings attention to the tradition of “framing” black and brown bodies through racist, capitalist, and misogynist discourses. He seeks to use his own multi-media collage to produce new visual narratives—hybrid images that articulate new worlds, new hope, and new ways of imagining black bodies in time and space.
His current series investigates the peripheral role the black figure played in early European oil paintings. By abstracting the black figure from the artwork Aaron re-envisions them as prominent figures in his artwork. He uses 18th century still life oil paintings as background, mixed with Japanese wood prints, modern typography, and vintage paper scans - creating a new Black Renaissance at least in collage form.
Aaron Marin is a former US Navy intelligence officer with over a decade of living and working in East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
He credits this time spent at the intersections of cultures and witnessing the intermingling of peoples from seemingly disparate cultures as certainly one of the most important aspects of life and art.
He plans to return to Tokyo this November to host pop-art shows and live collage.
To learn more about his work, follow him on Instagram @neutokyo (Collage) and @noraa_sketchbook ( Illustrations)