Archives for January 2016

I am a Facebook friend with a dedicated and giving artist who got me thinking about  process and creativity. This week she posted:

“I believe process, and an awareness of process, are two of the most important tools a creative person can have. With an understanding of our own process we can start to tweak it in productive ways, removing bad habits and building in good habits which will help us achieve the artistic goals we’ve set for ourselves.

Knowledge of our own process allows us to understand ourselves clearly, without camouflage.”

Reading this shed a light about process and where I am strong and where I need to spend more time. What initially came to my mind was how I need some structure to help me engage in any kind of art making daily. I am starting a class that is about sketchbook drawing in public. Every day the class will be asked to draw something. I want to watch myself as I re-shuffle the “have to do other stuff” list so I have time to draw. I need to figure out how to fit a drawing assignment into a day when my exasperated inner voice says “I am too busy to do this.” Working in art is exactly what I need on days like that.

I think this is a realistic goal. Any habit that I form has to take place in the midst of life. I can go off for a week to a retreat (always nice, someone making all the food and taking care of me while I just create) but then how much of that do I bring back into my life when I return? Sometimes if I am lucky and very careful, I can bring back a lot. When we actually learn how to do something in the midst of life we can all see immediately where the stress points, sticking points, and our own resistance come into play. There is no hiding!

This is after all, one aspect of process. And it’s also about finding how much we value our creative self and setting it as a priority over the other things on the to-do list.

Thanks for reading!

“Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”  Rainer Maria Rilke

Last week I put one of my watercolor paintings in a local exhibition. I received many great comments from people and I have to say I was happy at the outcome after working with yupo paper and watercolor and lots of texture. Someone made a comment, “Awesome, you are really onto something.” I created three different works using this medium. Each had varied themes and painted from past memory.

This week I stood in my studio and looked at my work. My range of work goes from those loose watercolors on yupo paper to more traditional watercolor paintings of realistic birch trees, landscapes and studies of flora. If I include the collages and my mono prints I have quite a mix of work. I shrug my shoulders as I look at the work and ask myself,  “What am I trying to do? Is it even any good?”

Sometimes we stumble upon wisdom in interesting places and just when we need it. In my case it was a two minute video called  “Taste” by Ira Glass and Daniel Sax https://vimeo.com/85040589. The premise is that in creativity there is a gap between one’s taste and one’s skills. In this case, taste is the ability to make discerning judgments about aesthetic and artistic work.

We enter into a world of creativity because we have taste but we also apply that lens to our own work. Oops, we realize our work does not match our taste! Glass’s insight is that this is where most people quit. The only way to “catch-up” to our taste is to do a volume of work and this takes a lot of time. Glass continues by advising “when in this phase it is important to fight your way through it..”  The encouragement in this video is that the gap phase is something we all go through.

So if I can stop myself from asking “Is the work good?” and instead focus on what I am learning from it then I can alter reasons why I choose to be creative in the first place. Not for approval but for personal breakthroughs and learning.

I have done many paintings, collages, mono prints that are all part of the process. It is okay to explore different media and art processes. I can only strive to view my endeavors as a potential and a curve by which to learn rather than creating something that will be considered great by someone else. If they sell I am delighted, but first the work should be regarded as important to learning.

Thanks for reading!

Yesterday I had a phone call from a friend and we spent a lot of time just catching up with news of our jobs, family, and winter plans. Toward the end of our conversation my friend asked for some advice about going back to school and picking up a technology certification to compliment his music education degree and add depth to his resume which already included a MEd. He had been considering this idea over a period of time. It had been incubating for many many months.

As I listened to his voice, the tempo and tone changed. I knew this was something he should do. His conversation became animated with excitement and anticipation of the possibilities. He did not need me to support what I thought about the cost or his time commitment for certification. He was well on his way to beginning coursework. He just not had fully realized it..yet.

We all have those voices that tell us that we should try something different. They come to us during the day when we are quiet or at night when we can not sleep. It is the nagging voice that interrupts concentration. There can be good voices and bad voices but it is the good voices that bring ideas that fill us with excitement and anticipation. Some call this voice either the guiding light, intuition, or having an epiphany.

In my friend’s voice I could also hear him being reinvigorated by the deepening of his expertise for music and technology. He recounted all sorts of possibilities his good voice was visioning. He had listened, listened more and incubated the idea before sharing it with others. He really had made up his mind, sharing it was just a formality.

Following the conversation I reflected on how to stay energized and enthusiastic about working when in a studio. When I was in the classroom I had daily interactions with colleagues who were an inspiration. They kept me excited about the work. As I work in the studio my daily interactions are few and far between.

The phone call reminded me that even though I am more distanced from others I can still practice strategies I used in the teaching profession that fuel enthusiasm and energize me. I can lead my own growth.

To lead growth for ourselves it is important to:

1. Continue to hold high expectations and a belief that accomplishments can happen. Seek out people who can provide feedback, mentoring, advice.
2. Interject the exciting, the memorable into the work. Add experiences such as a retreat, a class, a trip with the sketchbook. (even if the trip is to the local farmers market not to the countries near the Aegean Sea)
3. Be versatile and sensitive. Be true to yourself but remain sensitive to the needs of others. Reach out into the community and use your art to connect with others.
4. Be curious, confident, and evolving. Learn new ideas from younger artists or others doing what you do but doing it differently. Visit artist websites, read their blogs, attend their exhibitions.
5. Be imperfectly human.Tell stories of your own life. Admit vulnerability and not knowing.
6. Emphasize the fun in learning and in life. After hard working days in the studio have a light-hearted fun day in the studio. Play, experiment, rejoice with materials.

We all have different ways we can grow and not become stagnate. Our inner good voice is the start. Listen.