Making Things Nobody Asked For

Nobody asked for Phantom in the Ruins. No client brief, no budget, no deadline. Just a feeling I couldn't shake — a robed figure standing alone in a place that used to mean something.

Personal work is dangerous because there is no one to hide behind. When a client project doesn't land, you can point at the brief. When your own work doesn't land, there is nowhere to point. It's just you.

But that's also what makes it the only honest measure. The personal series I've made over the years tell me more about where I am as an artist than any client project I've ever delivered. They are the work that nobody needed, which means they are the only work I made entirely for the right reason.

If you are waiting for someone to ask you to make the thing you want to make — stop waiting. Make it first. The ask might never come, and that thing deserves to exist anyway.